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Confidence 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



IN QUIETNESS 
AND IN CONFIDENCE 



IN QUIETNESS 
AND IN CONFIDENCE 



HEART-TO-HEART DIARY. 



By ROSE PORTER, 

Author of "Honor ia" ; "In the Shadow of His Hand' 
"A Year of Blessing"; Etc., Etc. 



1 




NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 

\ 



.-ft 



Copyright, 1886, by 
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 



EDWARD O. JENKINS SONS, 

Printers, Stereotyfiers, and Electrotyfiers, 
20 North William St., New York. 



TO 
THE BLESSED MEMORY 

OF 

MY MOTHER: 

WHOSE EARTHLY LIFE TAUGHT 

" When He giveth quietness 
Who then can make trouble i " 



Remember, 

* ' In quietness and in confidence shall be your 

strength." 

Is. xxx. 15. 

For, 

" When He giveth quietness, who then can make 

afraid?" 

Job xxxiv. 29. 

" How beautiful within our souls to keep 
This treasure the All-merciful hath given, 
Grant it hearth and home. 

Quiet where'er we roam, 
Quiet around, within. " 

Hymns of the Ages. 



CONTENTS 



Prelude, .... 






ii 


L— In Quietness, 


• 


• 


. i7 


II. — The Call of the 


" Still, 


Small 


Voice," " Come," 


• 


• 


• 35 


III.— Thoughts on Work, 


. 


• 


- 53 


IV. — Rich Toward God, 


• 


• 


. . 67 


V. — Bread upon the Waters, 


• 


. 83 


VI. — Chastening, 


• 


• 


. 103 


VII. — The Age we Live in, 








VIII.— Wilderness Days, 


• 


• 


• 135 


IX. — Desert Places, 


. 


• 


. 157 


X.— Open Windows, 


, 


. 


. 183 



PRELUDE. 

A HEART-TO-HEART diary! The 
thought of it came to me with the 
dawning of the New Year. 

But, I am not sure that the word diary ex- 
presses my idea, for I have no plan for de- 
tailing emotions, or recording the subtle 
working of self-introspection, even though 
it be interwoven with aspiration. 

No, self is the very thing I want to keep 
out of sight, for the intruding of self, in 
hours of quiet meditation, is like walking 
across a sandy plain when the sky is cloud- 
less, and the sun at that point in the heavens 
which lets our shadow fall forward rather 
than backward. — And— who wants to walk 
with the shadow of self leading the way ? 
"Self" — "that black spot in our sunshine," 
as Carlyle terms it. 

(ii) 



I2 PRELUDE. 

Ah ! Dear Lord, I pray Thee, henceforth 
let the shadow of self fall behind, not before ; 
and it will, if the soul abides in the quiet- 
ness the Lord giveth. 

Yes, the quietness and confidence wherein 
is strength, like the " peace which passeth 
understanding," is God's gift, hence the 
preciousness of it, for the giver makes the 
value of the gift. 

No wonder, then, this God-given quietness 
is deep and reposeful as the calm of a mid- 
summer noon, the hour which enfolds na- 
ture in a tender silence that is like "a white 
hushed Presence. " 

And yet, though this " quietness and con- 
fidence " may be the soul's true environ- 
ment, life, and its mystery, like wind among 
the tree-tops, is full of restless stirring. 
How to reconcile the one to the other is the 
problem that meets us on the threshold of 
these pages, and the practical question 
growing out of it is, How are we, you and 
I, dear H , in the living of our daily 



PRELUDE. X o 

lives, to adjust the relation of contemplation 
to action ? 

Is God brought near by action that we 
may contemplate Him, or is He brought 
near that we may be fitted to work for Him ? 

Old Philo the Jew maintained that " ac- 
tion must precede contemplative life in 
order that the latter be healthy. ,, But, I 
think we can fix no rule, for surely God 
orders in our lives the way we must take to 
find Him, and our part is to follow that way 
whether it leads to active or passive service; 
and just as true is it that we must not let 
thoughts of action make us forget that 
"they also serve who stand and wait," as 
that we must not let meditation cripple our 
action. Acknowledging this, let our object 
in these ponderings on the soul's life be, 
then, the striving to find how we may enter 
into service through both, for we know God 
bids us render both, and our by-gone ex- 
periences have taught us, He can speak to 
us in the tumult of the storm, in the throng- 



I4 PRELUDE. 

ing rush of pressing duties, as well as in 
still, calm hours. Better, do you say, for 
" How can silence have a voice ? " 

We will take that question for our first 
" Heart-to-Heart " meditation, and come, let 
us listen, and hear " the silence open like a 
flower." 



IN QUIETNESS. 



" The love of God 

.... This is the peace of Heaven on earth. 
This is quiet." 

" Sit still, my daughter." 

Ruth iii. r8. 

''Commune with your own heart, .... and be 

still Put your trust in the Lord." 

Ps. iv. 4, 5- 

Remember, 

"A quiet, patient heart that meekly serves the Lord, 
God's finger joys to touch, it is His harpsichord. 



I. 

IN QUIETNESS. 

QUIETNESS of soul ! This is one of 
those spiritual truths, that in its ful- 
ness can only be spiritually discerned, 
and can only be ours as we live it. 

For in the matter of religious truth there 
is a difference, " the tree of knowledge is 
not necessarily the tree of Life." Life ! 
living in, goes deeper than knowledge. Let 
us remember this, as we ponder the mystery 
of silence, of stillness before God, for only 
the living soul can hear the echoes of the 
Voice that fills 

" Faith's ear with still delight." 

Let us remember, too, a mind may be still 
though active, and that the quietness which 
is part of " the confidence " we have in Him, 
the Christ, is only found in the close abid- 

2 (17) 



^ IN QUIETNESS. 

ing in Him, emblemed in His own parable 
of the Vine and the branch. 

You must not lose heart because you do 
not come to know this nearness all at once, 
for love involves constant growth, and con- 
formity to His will; hence the longer we 
follow that will, the more the soul, by God's 
grace, expands. Then, too, in our Shep- 
herd's guiding, there are pastures and pas- 
tures, sheltered meadows where He gently 
leads, as well as high table-lands of verdure, 
up to which, as they become ready for 
mountain-top life, He carries His flock one 
bv one, safe folded in His arms of Love. 

There is something so close and personal 
in all this, a special tenderness for our indi- 
vidual need, that fills the soul with a sense 
of infinite quiet, for out of special tender- 
ness grows special understanding, and the 
sweet, reposeful assurance that there is no 
massing of His sheep ; each and every one 
is as much apart, filling a place all their 
own in God's sight, as the leaves on a tree 
are distinct one from the other. 

Perhaps this is why the fullest commun- 
ion we hold with our Lord is suggested by 
the type of " a still, small voice." You know 



IN QUIETNESS. I g 

how it is in our earthly lives, the words of 
love that are the dearest, and all for our- 
selves are the softly whispered ones, that 
we only hear. And, surety, the Lover of 
Souls, in keeping tryst with His chosen, in 
the same way comes nearest to us, when 
His words are for us alone, and, 

" Truly in all eternity, no tone can be so sweet, 

As when man's heart with God's in unison doth beat." 

Grace, too, never seems so full, as when 
we recognize the personal element held in 
the promise, " My grace is sufficient for 
thee." Fears never melt away so swiftly as 
when we meet them in the safe encompass- 
ing of the assurances : " When thou passeth 
through the waters, I will be with thee." 
"My rod and my staff shall uphold///^." 
Service is never so dear and blessed a fol- 
lowing of Christ, as when in response to 
His call, " Come unto me, all ye," we pass 
beyond the general invitation to the fellow- 
ship of the after words, "Take my yoke 
uponjw, and learn of me." 

Christ's yoke ! What a close uniting of in- 
dividual companionship that involves ! 

Truly, so profound is the mystery of this 



20 IN QUIETNESS. 

life hid in Christ, to each of His dear follow- 
ers " the quietness and confidence wherein is 
strength," is only found in this aloneness, 
this oneness with Him, who knows our 
souFs deepest depth and need, for, " He 
made the spirit we are of." 

If you realize all that is meant by this, 

you have come, dear H , to a very " quiet 

resting-place." Repeat the words, "He 
made the spirit we are of," and with them 
link the verse from the Gospel according to 
St. John, "All things were made by Him, 
and without Him was not anything made 
that was made." By Him who came and 
lived on earth as the Man Christ Jesus — 
have you ever dwelt on the truth, that cre- 
ation was the Function of the God Christ 
as well as salvation ? 

As I look from my window to-day, the 
whole world seems bathed in His love, 
glowing in the light of the life of Him 
whose peculiar office in the spiritual world 
is God revealing, and in the natural too, 
for Nature's chapter of revelation is hardly 
less full than the Spirit's, it is a page so wide 
spread of an ever open book clear writ to 
the seeing heart. 



IN QUIETNESS. 2I 

But let us turn from these thoughts, while 
with reverence we strive to learn the lessons 
taught by silence, strive to discover why by 
quietness of soul strength is obtained. And 
note that growth in strength is a sure out- 
come of silence in regard to our own sor- 
rows, daily cares, perplexities, and annoy- 
ances. 

I do not mean that silence which comes 
when the soul is shaken to its very founda- 
tion, and we are dumb, because the anguish 
is beyond words, but I mean that " stillness 
in God which is the perfect life, the grace 
of tranquillity. ,, This is the quietness He 
means us to learn by and through sorrow, 
and by what a blessed rosary of comfort- 
laden promises He teaches us this lesson 
step by step. But, before we can take the 
first step, we must " put Him between one's 
self and one's grief" — and even then, as 
Harriet Monsell writes: "It will take a long 
time to learn, because one is slow to take 
in the stilling of self-acting that God may 
act in us, by His inner work." Never- 
theless, she adds, " I am convinced this 
stillness, which is by no means inaction, is 
God's call to us as w T e advance in holiness." 



22 IN QUIETNESS. 

Advance — I want you to heed that word, 
and remember it means, " He that believeth 
shall not make haste/' Hence we see sure 
growth is wont to be slow growth. We may 
require to sow and sow again, and when at 
last the seeds of desire after holiness do 
take root, still there will be need for us to 
learn of nature, whose law is, first the bud, 
and then the unfolding, leaf by leaf, before 
the flower is a bloom, and more gradual 
even is the progress of ripening fruit. 

What a sweet quieting of soul there is in 
all this — what a tender bidding of patient 
waiting for the " confidence " which holds 
" strength " for sorrowful hours. Patience ! 
Yes — surely it is a blossom of which the 
root is quietness. " Be patient in tribula- 
tion "— " Possess your soul in patience " — 
thus the commands read, and patience im- 
plies quiet submission of heart before God's 
dealings. 

But I repeat, it is slowly learned, and in- 
volves a sacrifice of self, quite, if not more 
complete than active service demands. And 
yet, as we apply this truth to the uncom- 
plaining bearing of sorrow, how marvel- 
lously eloquent its very silence becomes, re- 



IN QUIETNESS. 23 

vealing to us that we must not expect light 
to illumine our darkness before we have 
discovered the blessing hidden in the dark- 
ness, for there is always a blessing linked 
with every sorrow. God grant us the faith 
to find it, for, as I said, it is surely there, an 
immortal hope, even though as the winding 
tissues enwrap the chrysalis, it may be for 
a time shut in with the darkness. The par- 
able of " the leaven hid in three measures 
of meal " tells us this — and, knowing it is 
there, can we not be patient even if we 
have to wait till the whole is leavened ? 
Darkness — and waiting — yes — they both 
have their own lesson, for spite the soul's 
sureness of the Everlasting Arms that sup- 
port with an upholding clasp that only the 
sorrow-touched know, God sends the afflic- 
tion, and He means sorrow to be sorrow, 
and to do its work, else where were the 
chastening of His Love? And if there were 
no darkness, how could we learn the obedience 
of faith ? — the patient waiting for the " day 
to break when shadows flee away " ? — 

" They never can fly away," do you say, 
"till earth is exchanged for Heaven," for 
sorrow never leaves the heart into which it 



24 



IN QUIETNESS. 



has really entered. In one sense you are 
right, and yet in another, I think you are 

wrong, in that statement, dear H . I 

agree with you that real sorrow leaves a 
scar as long lasting as our mortal life, even 
though sometimes it does seem quickly and 
rudely pushed aside ; still it stays, but na- 
tures are different, and in nothing do we 
see this difference more sharply defined than 
by the way griefs are met and borne. And, 
anyway, it is not our place to judge the 
seemingly shallow-hearted, but without 
judging we know in earnest natures, as time 
goes on, and some seem to forget sorrow, 
it is only seeming, and from the fact, too, 
that it has become inwrought as a part of 
self, hence it no longer stands out in the 
bold relief of a separate thing. 

And if sometimes this makes us more 
lonely, because we feel the lack of the sym- 
pathy with which at first friends encom- 
passed our every hour, this very feeling is 
a pasture place, for there is a precious side 
to this craving for human sympathy, be- 
cause in it our Lord meets us very closely, 
for when on earth He, too, felt it. 

Do you remember how He told His dis- 



IN QUIETNESS. 2 ^ 

ciples "the Son of Man must suffer many 
things " ? Were not those words a plea for 
sympathy? And then, how He bade them 
"watch with Him one hour," thus again 
repeating the same desire. And yet, how 
they failed Him! for His sorrow was to 
them as an unread page, and the servant is 
not above his Master. 

In hours of great loneliness, and when 
you feel you are not fully understood, it will 
help you to follow this thought, for even if 
it lead " into the cloud " you will know He 
entered that cloud before you, and He 
knows all about the trial of loneliness — 
all about it ! 

But as you thus think, never fail to remem- 
ber, whatever the weight of Christ's anguish, 
His heart was always open to the needs of 
others; and if we follow Him, we, too, must 
keep open eyes, and open hearts for the 
burdens those about us may be called to 
carry, and that perhaps our sympathy can 
make less heavy. 

This is one of the places I almost fear to 
approach, for there is always danger of 
making a mistake in the manner of offering 
sympathy, and I hesitate in giving even a 



2 6 IN QUIETNESS. 

suggestion as to " the best way." One thing 
certainly it is well to remember, and that is, 
that grief is as truly a possession as anything 
else, hence the feeling of warm pity for 
others gives us no right to handle and touch 
the wounded place with any claim to dic- 
tate or control. 

Do you recall how Bunsen wrote, " A man 
has nothing more sacred, of all that is es- 
sentially his own, than his grief." All this 
makes quiet sympathy the safest, and al- 
most always it is the most acceptable. 

And if by dividing miles we be too far 
separated from the sorrowing friends we 
love, to whisper, " My dear !" — u my dear ! " 
— one cannot go far amiss by sending the 
simple words, " Remember God loves — and 
God knows." And in truth, when hearts 
are crushed, this is about all they can 
*ake in. 

I trust I am right in telling you this. I 
think the really sorrowful will say, "Yes, 
the sweetest of all solace is quiet sympathy." 
Surely, it is the flower of self-forgetfulness, 
that blossoms out of still communion with 
Him who alone can give wisdom for the 
blessed ministry of consolation. A minis- 



IN QUIETNESS. 2 ~ 

try that is bounded on every side by the 
command, "Let the same mind be in you 
that was in Christ Jesus." 

The having that mind will solve, too, our 
own perplexities, as to how we ourselves 
are to meet trials in the childlike spirit of 
quiet submission that clings with a child's 
confidence to the strength of Him who 
" doth not afflict willingly," but for the sake 
of the ripening of the "afterward peace- 
able fruits of righteousness." 

I need hardly tell you the sorrows to 
which I have alluded are the deepest griefs 
that human hearts can know. For the com- 
forting of lesser trials by sympathy I would 
not so strictly enjoin silence — for to some 
natures, "little troubles," when spoken out, 
vanish like mist before sunshine; neverthe- 
less, in speaking of one's own special trials, 
I do think we grow stronger when we accept 
them silently, knowing "the Infinite Hand 
behind the clouds gives only the sorrows 
we can bear," and remembering if He mul- 
tiplies them, "they who suffer much, are 
like those who know many languages, they 
are learning to understand and be under- 
stood by all." 



2 8 IN QUIETNESS. 

There is another truth which I need 
hardly tell you, and yet I would not have 
you pass it by. It is, that the peace and 
repose of possessing a mind quiet like our 
Lord's is purely spiritual, and not accord- 
ing to the world's interpretation of quiet- 
ness. For this inner calmness of soul is 
something all outside of circumstances, and 
it is the something which makes " the cross 
of Christ the pledge to us, that even the 
deepest suffering may be the condition of 
the highest blessing." 

This is one of those complex truths that 
are much like some musicful symphony, 
where the " rest " in the strain is the part 
which most clearly brings out the underly- 
ing harmony that like a golden thread runs 
through bass and treble, linking lower, 
higher, and midway notes in one complete 
whole, and it is a true type of the quiet 
"pause-places " that come in the midst of 
these lives of ours. Places where the still, 
small voice reveals to the listening soul that 
" secret of the Lord " which is the chain 
that links our struggles here with victory 
there. A secret which we know is in safe 
keeping even when the waves of life's toss- 



IN QUIETNESS. 29 

ing oceans are most turbulent, and well- 
nigh deafen our power of listening to that 
whispering Voice. Yet we know it is safe, 
I repeat, for u He is willing and able to keep 
that which we have committed to Him." 

Thinking of it thus, it seems much as it 
does when, on a summer morning, we look 
across some wide stretch of sea-water to- 
ward the horizon line, which is hardly visi- 
ble, so heavy hangs the misty veil that is 
waiting for the sun to rise and scatter its 
cloud-like vapor, and yet we know, it is all 
that divides us from a clear sight of the 
up-hill slope of the sky that leads to the 
rounded vault of Heaven's blue dome. Try 
to remember this "emblem of the sky" 
when next the brooding clouds of trial come 
like a vapor between your soul and the 
Heaven-ward path, that like altar-stairs 
leads the heart of faith Up to the Heart of 
Love. 

And now I have filled my paper so full, 
scarce space enough is left for me to bid you 
strive to meet daily cares, perplexities, and 
annoyances with all the quietness you can 
cull from God's promised help, which is 
your confidence and strength; but it is just 



3 o IN QUIETNESS. 

as well, for no one can make a rule for ano- 
ther's conduct in matters of the soul's life. 
The being true to your own conviction of 
right, being in profound earnest, and the 
humbly asking how Christ would have acted 
under the same circumstances, is all the 
guide I could give you were I to write pages, 
so I will only add the " Rosary " of Bible 
verses I promised, for they all point to- 
ward the acquirement of spiritual strength, 
through spiritual quietness. 

A ROSARY OF SILENCE. 

" Be silent before the Lord . . . for, lo, I come, 
and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord " 
(Zech. ii. io, 19). 

" Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be 
faint-hearted " (Is. vii. 4). 

" The work of righteousness shall be peace : and the 
effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for- 
ever" (Is. xxxii. 17). 

"And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habi- 
tation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting 
places " (Is. xxxii. 18). 

" The word of the Lord came to me, saying .... 
I will give peace and quietness; .... be strong, and 
of good courage ; dread not, nor be discouraged " (1 
Ch. xxi. 9, 13). 

" For when He giveth quietness, who then can make 
afraid ? " (Job xxxiv. 29). 



IN QUIETNESS. ^1 

" Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and 
shall be quiet from fear of evil " (Prov. i. 33). 

11 It is a good thing that a man should both hope 
and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord " (Lam. 
iii. 26). 

''Thine eyes shall see a quiet habitation" (Is. 
xxxiii. 20). 

"And better is a handful with quietness, than both 
the hands full with vexation of spirit" (Eccl. iv. 5). 

" Quiet, Lord, my froward heart ; 

Make me teachable and mild, 

Upright, simple, free from art ; 

Make me as a little child : 
From distrust and envy free, 
Pleased with all that pleases Thee. 

" What Thou shalt to-day provide, 

Let me as a child receive ; 
What to-morrow may betide, 

Calmly to Thy w T isdom leave : 
'Tis enough that Thou wilt care, 
Why should I the burden bear ? 

" As a little child relies 

On a care beyond his own, 
Knows he's neither strong nor wise, 

Fears to stir a step alone : 
Let me thus with Thee abide, 
As my Father, guard, and guide." 



THE CALL OF THE "STILL, 
SMALL VOICE," "COME." 



" Come thou, and all thine house, into the ark." 

Genesis viii. I, 



O Lord and Master of us all, 

Whate'er our name or sign, 
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, 

We test our lives by Thine." 

Whittier, 



" A holy thought is a ' Still, small Voice.' " 



II 



THE CALL OF THE " STILL, SMALL 
VOICE," "COME." 

HAVE you ever thought of the person- 
ality of the word house, or temple 
when it is used in the Bible to express the 
soul ? 

" Come thou, and all thine house, into the 
ark." Read that verse in the knowledge of 
God that shines in the faith of Jesus Christ, 
and tell me, do you not find it glowing with 
the warmth of a personal invitation ? 

In the faith of Jesus Christ ! How true 
it is, in that radiance, God's word becomes 
"A lamp unto our feet, a light unto our 
path," for, the oil that feeds faith's lamp is 
Love. I am glad for to-day's meditation, 
the first word on which its beams fall is the 
blessed word "Come." 

" Come," — I think we never read it in the 
language of Holy Scripture without seem- 
to) 



36 THE CALL, "COME." 

ing to see the Hand extended in welcome, 
without seeming to hear the Voice, unlike 
any other voice, "still and small," whisper- 
ing — " Come " — " Come unto me." 

" Come," — God grant it may be our portal 
word leading within to the mystery of the 
" inner life," for the life of the soul is a 
mystery. 

"Inner life." — Do you ask what it is? 
The answer is not far to seek: " In Christ," 
holds the reply. 

Ah, the comfort of this nearness of com- 
panionship with oar Lord, — thank God, it is 
implanted in the New Testament as a foun- 
dation principle of discipleship as firmly as 
"the mountains are round about Jerusa- 
lem." 

Yes, whatever our outward life may be, — 
and we must know an outer life, else how 
could we learn to be "in the world, yet not 
of it," — always we have this " ark of 
strength, our resting and our hiding place 
in Christ." 

But remember, only as we obey His call, 
and Come, can we know the quietness of 
soul that belongs to abiding in His Pres- 
ence. A quietness that is like the sweet 



THE CALL, "COME." ^ 

mellow silence of some still wood, that holy- 
calm of spirit that is akin to the unfathom- 
able azure of the deep sky. 

Do you tell me, dear H , all this is easy 

to write, and yet it holds no clear answer 
to your question — " How can I come ?" True 
enough, nevertheless that is one of those 
questions whose answer is only found in 
coming. " He that believeth hath the wit- 
ness in himself." Your part is to test belief 
by its effects ; I can do no more than assure 
you it will be "peace and quietness." 

Still I will give you a line from Tennyson 
which helped me once when perplexed as 
you are now, 

" I cannot understand, I love." 

Do you find in it a hint broad enough to 
serve for a reply ? Note, it bids you love, 
and if you love, sure am I you will come, 
and coming, dark places will grow light, 
even light enough for you to learn, 

" Through all the future of thy years, 

To form thy life in likeness of thy Lord's." 

And now let us turn again to the emblem 
thought that pictures the soul under the 



38 THE CALL, "COME." 

metaphor of a house or temple. It guides 
by a straight pathway from the Old, on, to 
the New Testament ; and yet like all the 
paths of the Lord, there are many halting 
places by the way, where the weary may rest 
by the " brook of the willows" (Isa. xv. 7), 
or in "groves by the green trees upon the 
high hills " (Jer. xvii.). But we will only 
pause to record the Prophet's command to 
the dying king, " Set thine house — thy soul — 
in order," and Solomon's assurance that 
"wisdom hath builded her house, she hath 
hewn out her seven pillars." 

What are the soul's seven pillars of wis- 
dom ? Verily, in seeking a reply there is 
need for us to pray, 

" O Lord of Hosts, all Heaven possessing, 
Reveal to us each secret meaning of all Thy Word's 
divinest lore." 

Open our eyes that we may see, our ears 
that we may hear. 

Seven pillars ! — Are they strong staffs for 
the uplifting and supporting of the heavy- 
laden branches on which grow the " fruits 
of the Spirit " ? Do they hold up toward 
the Sun of Righteousness those fruits that 



THE CALL, "COME." 39 

can know no ripening save as the Heavenly 
beams nourish and perfect their growth ? 

This is the interpretation we will take, 
and let us link to it St. Paul's definition of 
those special " spiritual fruits." I am so 
glad he gave them each a name and 
meaning all their own, making them stand 
out well-nigh as vividly as the Blessings 
which gem our Saviour's mountain sermon. 
And following Paul's guidance, and taking 
Christ Jesus for the chief " corner-stone " of 
all our efforts after up-building, let us by 
way of help in the worthily living these daily 
lives of ours, plant the spiritual fruits around 
the seven pillars of wisdom, which God grant 
may already be set firm in our souls. 

First of all is " Love "j for love twines 
about the pillar that is nearest the " Corner- 
stone." We know this, for its superscrip- 
tion tells us : " He who loveth God, loveth 
his brother also." And "he that loveth 
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love 
him " (John xiv. 21). 

Love, too, is the fruit which secures all 
the others, for he who loves, trusts. And 
think what a foremost place love fills in the 
Gospel record, 



4 o THE CALL, "COME." 

" Think well how Jesus trusts Himself 
Unto our love." . . . 

And 

" His love of us may teach us how 
To love Him in return : 
Love cannot help but grow more free 
The more its transports burn." 

"Joy " is the next fruit in Paul's enumer- 
ation — Joy, Holy Joy. It is a slow growth 
in the Christian's soul ; it is hard to learn, 
for the joy of which Paul tells is the " re- 
joicing in tribulation." 

" How can we thus rejoice ? " Because of 

the afterward, dear H . Afterward ! 

I hardly know a word fuller of comfort for 
God's children than that, and yet there are 
so many comfort-laden words — so many ! 

"Peace." — Our Saviour Himself tells us 
its support. Such a strong pillar, even His 
promise, " Peace I leave with you, my peace 
I give unto you." Never forget this peace 
which passeth understanding is Christ's 
gift! Peace — it is well it foreruns "Long- 
suffering" Surely Paul knew we would 
need the one to help us meet the other. 
Hence he ranked them as he did. 

Suffering ! How to define it I am power- 



THE CALL, "COME." 4I 

less, it comes in ways so manifold ; and 
truly each " heart knoweth its own bitter- 
ness." And yet suffering is a wonderful re- 
vealer. It speaks an open language to those 
who have the " key of love," even while at 
the same time it is a pillar in the soul hung 
heavy with mystery. 

But one thing is very plain, and that is, 
the blessing of sorrow does not consist in the 
suffering it brings. No, " it consists in the 
spiritual response to suffering of one whose 
confidence in the Supreme Source of Love 
and Goodness cannot be thus overcome ; it 
consists in the angels of Peace that came to 
strengthen Christ when He was willing to 
drink the cup that God might glorify His 
own name." 

What a tender manifestation of Christ's 
care for us, His followers, we find in His 
anticipation that the enigma of permitted 
suffering was a question that would echo on 
as long as time lasts, and thus He set for its 
quieting the same seal to its why that He ap- 
plied as a test to His own willingness to en- 
dure, even the glory of God. 

Do you remember it is written, "And His 
disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who 



42 



THE CALL, "COME." 



did sin, this man or his parents, that he 
was born blind ? Jesus answered, Neither 
hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but 
that the works of God should be made manifest 
in him." — " Now a certain man was sick, 
named Lazarus. Then his sisters sent 
unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom 
thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, 
He said, This sickness is not unto death, 
hut for the glory of God, that the Son of God 
might be glorified thereby." 

I am so thankful for this " trailing cloud 
of glory " that illumes our darkness, and 
that nowhere in the Bible can we find that 
God or Christ demands that suffering is to 
be accepted or sought for its own sake ; so 
thankful there is no such narrow limit as 
that to the chastening which makes part of 
Christ's call, bidding us " come " to Him. 

We know, too, the pillar that upholds 
sorrow, and that is planted deep in every 
human soul, is both a rod and a staff in 
one. It is this knowledge that gives us 
strength to ask that we may enter into " the 
fellowship of His suffering." 

It is a profoundly solemn petition to offer. 
Think ! it means to "be conformed to His 



THE CALL, "COME." 43 

death," that is, to be made like Him. Ah ! 
if we can thus pray, even though the soul's 
path heavenward leads " up-hill all the 
way," we are well nigh the summit, I think; 
we begin 

" To feel from burdening cares and ills, 
The strong uplifting of the hills," 

even the everlasting hills from " whence 
cometh help." 

But this is one of the places, where in 
pondering on the " Man of Sorrows," and 
what it means to follow His steps, we need 
to tread very carefully lest we make a mis- 
take. 

For, "while sorrows, disappointments 
were around Christ, moulding Him on all 
sides, the element in which His strength 
was made, His life lived ; yet love, faith, 
hope, the joy of the soul in God, were the 
inspirations from which they came, and to 
which they rose." And they gave Him 
power to become "acquainted with grief," 
but at the same time to behold its other, its 
0/nvard side. 

Then, too, " He who was made perfect by 
suffering, never could succumb to suffering, 



44 THE CALL, "COME." 

nor permit the sense of it to be dominant in 
His nature," for while self-sacrifice must in- 
volve pain, yet, as Phillips Brooks expresses 
it, " He carried the song and the trumpet 
always in His heart. That life, marking its 
way with drops of blood, on which the pity 
of the world has dwelt more tenderly than 
over any other life it knows, has yet always 
seemed to the world's best standards to 
be a true triumphal march, radiant with 
splendor all along the way, and closing in a 
true victory at last." And, to continue the 
quotation, " One of the brightest insights 
which we ever get into the human heart and 
its essential breadth and justice, and its 
power, when it is working at its best, to 
hold what seem contradictory ideas in their 
true spiritual harmony, is given to us when 
we see how men have been able to see 
together both sides of the life of Jesus, to 
pity His sorrow and to glory in His happi- 
ness, and yet to blend both of these two 
thoughts of Him into one single idea of one 
single self-consistent Christ. It is a sort of 
witness of how truly men, in that highest 
mood into which they are drawn when they 
try to study Christ, easily see the real truth 



THE CALL, "COME." 4 j 

with regard to human life, which is that in 
it joy and pain, so far from being incon- 
sistent with and contradictory to one ano- 
ther, are, in some true sense, each other's 
complement, and neither alone, but both 
together, make the true sum of human life." 

Pause a moment here, to note the deep 
and tender significance of the w T ay in which 
our Lord met the most suffering hours of 
His life. How marked is the truth that 
" He never let suffering give the direction 
to His feelings nor suggest His thoughts." 

This is a very full example for us to con- 
template, and that you may quite clearly 
see its meaning, I copy the words of an 
English writer, for they make it very plain : 
" When He is departing from the temple for 
the last time, the Rejected forever, He sees 
the widow with her mite, the beauty of the 
offering takes possession of His heart, and 
instead of mourning for Himself, He is 
blessing her. At the last supper no word of 
sorrow is breathed by Him, no fear but for 
the imperfect fidelity of those whom on the 
morrow He was to leave to their own 
strength, whilst the sorrow of the disciples 
is gently reproved as far from the occasion: 



46 THE CALL, "COME." 

Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe 
in God, believe also in me/ ' Peace I leave 
with you, my peace I give unto you/ ' If 
ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I go 
to my Father/ Whilst bearing His own 
cross, there is solicitude for others, but 
peace for Himself: ' Women of Jerusalem, 
weep not for me ; weep for yourselves and 
for your children/ And on the cross itself 
all suffering leads to the suggestions of 
mercy, the prayer of forgiveness, the last 
directions to love, the consciousness of being 
perfectly safe in the hands of God. When, 
then, we call Christ ' the Man of Sorrows/ 
let us remember what we mean ; that He 
was one whose spiritual nature suffering 
never ruled, whose peace, hope, and love 
sorrow could perfect, but could not disturb. 
. . . . He passed through the fulness of 
sorrow as He passed through the fulness of 
temptation, and had the brightness of His 
spiritual love dimmed by neither/' 

If we enter into the heart of this, dear 

H , how it broadens our prayer that we 

may have "fellowship with Him," for such 
fellowship would cause us to meet our life, 
even though it be sorrow-encompassed, with 



THE CALL, "COME.'" 



47 



cheerful energy, in a brave, trustful spirit, 
ready to turn from our own griefs with 
hearts of love and self-forgetfulness, reach- 
ing out in help toward others, and finding 
pleasure in self-sacrifice. 

And yet, despite this, sometimes the clouds 
hang low, and though the mountain heights 
are shining, we are down in the valley, and 
our eyes seem holden when we seek to scan 
their topmost summits. 

Weli! — there is one thing we can always do 
at such times, and perhaps this is why they 
come to us; we can trust in love when we 
cannot see, for it does not need sight to 
hold on, knowing 

" Forever from the Hand that takes 
One blessing from us others fall ; 
And, soon or late, our Father makes 
His perfect recompense to all ! " 

This truth I am sure we can learn from 
the fruits of " Goodness " and " Gentleness " 
that clasp their tendrils so firmly around 
wisdom's pillars. And now comes "Faith" 
for we have gone the round. Faith leads 
us back to Love, just as Love leads us on to 
Faith. And the corner-stone, in which both 
are firm set, holds the chain that links the 



4 8 THE CALL, "COME." 

one with the other ; while like the hinges 
of a strong gateway before Faith and Love, 
the entrance swings wide open, and we are 
safe " in Christ,'' " in whom all the building 
fitly framed together groweth into an holy 
temple in the Lord," " an habitation of God 
through the Spirit." 

So we come again to the opening thought 
of our meditation, the home of which our 
soul stands as a type. Our Saviour Him- 
self tells us this, for " He spoke of the tem- 
ple of His body," — the body in one sense sig- 
nifying that self-hood which in the days of 
our mortal life is so a part, as it were, in its 
subtle interblending and working with what 
we call the soul, that both are needful to 
bring out the full idea of either, for they are 
dependent one on the other for the accom- 
plishment of any active or tangible work, 
as much as root and branch are both 
needed to make a tree. Hence the meta- 
phor, " The earthly house of this tabernacle, 
which is the temple of the living God." 
And " the temple of God is holy." Can we 
add the afterpaf t of the verse, " which tem- 
ple ye are " ? With humble reverence I 
think we may, for 



THE CALL, "COME." 



49 



True life grows on from small to great, 
Each year, each day, its increase finds ; 
Nor is it the " blind force " of fate, 
That earthly sorrow ofttime blends, 
With the pure work of grace, the more to consecrate 
The love which ever in its sacred yearning heaven- 
ward tends. 

Are you weary ? Have patience a little 
longer, for I cannot leave the call that bids 
us enter within the ark of safety and quiet, 
without lingering a moment to ponder the 
fulness of the invitation. 

It reads, not only, "come thou," but " all 
thine house/' — All. It is a brief word, yet 
broad enough to compass our every need, 
for there is nothing too great, nothing too 
small for us to bring to the One of all com- 
passion. All may come into the ark. Yes, 
it is true God is so great that there is with 
Him no small and no great things. Such 
distinctions fade before the Power that 
can give all things. 

When we really feel this, the place prayer 
fills in the soul so widens ; it becomes like 
those trees which unfold new leaves even 
while the old remain, for the echo of one 
prayer does not die away before another 
4 



jo THE CALL, "COME." 

begins. And — I think it is the going to God 
with our every want that He loves. Hence 
the oftener we go, the more we please Him, 
for our asking for the, to us, seemingly little 
things is but demonstrating our entire de- 
pendence on Him, and surely this depend- 
ence, this trust, is what makes us the chil- 
dren of our Heavenly Father. 

It is the essence of that "perfect love 
which casteth out fear," and when it takes 
possession of the soul, even though for long 
years we may stay here on earth, our spirits 
live in the presence of the Unseen, for "it 
is the soul that sees," and 

"He who sees the Future, sure 

The baffling Present may endure, 

And bless meanwhile the Hand that leads 

The heart's desires beyond the halting steps of deeds." 

Enter the ark, then, "fear not"; bring 
your all things ; your temptations, your 
doubts, your sorrows, and your joys, your 
efforts and your failures ; bring them all to 
Him who bids you "Come." 

11 Who would not go, 
With bouyant steps to gain that blessed portal, 

Which opens to the land we want to know, 
Where shall be satisfied the souls immortal. 

Who would not go ? " 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. 



" Every place that the sole of your feet shall tread 
on, that have I given you." Joshua i. 3. 



"Is it hard to serve God, timid soul? Hast thou 
found 
Gloomy forests, dark glens, mountain-tops on thy 
way ? 
All the hard would be easy, all the tangles un- 
wound, 
Wouldst thou only desire, as well as obey." 

Faber. 



III. 

THOUGHTS ON WORK. 

REMEMBER it is one thing to know 
God's gifts, another thing to accept 
them. And while it is true that God has 
given us a land of promise in Christ, it yet 
remains for us to take possession of it; we 
must set "the sole of our feet" upon it for 
ourselves. To-day let us apply this truth 
to work, in whose domain it holds firm 
sway, for while every task God gives us 
contains a blessing, yet we must find that 
blessing for ourselves. 

But you say — " We cannot find it, save as 
God reveals it to us." Your words, dear 

H , lead to one of the mystery places 

that only grows plain to the heart in which 
faith rules — one of the places where the 
soul's altar is inscribed, " Lord, I believe, — 
help Thou mine unbelief." 

St. Paul states this complex truth in the 

(53) 



54 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. 



verse, " Work oitt your own salvation, for it 
is God who worketh in you," hence we see, 
like all the experiences of spiritual life, it 
involves a joint work. There is no such 
thing as aloneness when once we have ac- 
cepted God's will as our w T ill, and no sooner 
do we perceive this, than we also see it 
is the Holy Spirit that wakens aspiration in 
our souls. Yes, we know all earnest im- 
pulse, all desire after good comes from the 
" Spirit," while our part is the weaving im- 
pulse into steady purpose, desire into fruit- 
ful deed ; and how the recognition of this 
sanctifies our daily life, how it enfolds us very 
near to God. Let us strive to remember this, 
and that when a lofty aspiration, a tender 
thought, a great yearning to help others 
comes flooding the soul with Heavenly 
radiance, lighting up even the common 
"every-dayness" of life with glory, it is 
God " working in us" scattering in the 
garden of our hearts the holy seeds of desire 
for service, for Christ's sake ; and, remem- 
ber also that only as we faithfully tend and 
nourish them will they grow and bear 
flower and fruit ; only thus will we come at 
last to know what the " Harvest-Home- 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. ^ 

Song " means, for only to believers are 
songs of everlasting joy promised, and 
workers are believers. 

But we must be patient, we must not 
expect the harvest straightway to follow 
the planting. Nature teaches us this, for 
as in the natural so in the spiritual, " the 
blade is not the full corn*'; but, though it 
may be well-nigh imperceptible, growth is 
sure, if the laws of growth are heeded. In 
the soul's life you know the chief law, keep 
close to the source of growth, close to Him 
who has promised to be as " the dew unto 
Israel," and that " there shall be an handful 
of corn in the earth, upon the top of the 
mountains ; the fruit thereof shall shake 
like Lebanon. " What a meaningful verse 
this is ! — only a handful of corn, and yet, 
because planted by faith, on the mountain- 
top, close up, near to God, right under the 
very sunlight as it were of His Presence, 
its fruit becomes of value sufficient to be 
numbered under the wide-spreading meta- 
phor of Lebanon. " Cast forth his roots 
as Lebanon. " What a promise that for 
workers in the Lord's vineyard ! And then 
comes, " His branches shall spread, His 



56 



THOUGH TS ON WORK. 



beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and His 
smell as Lebanon. " How fragrant a type 
this of the healing odor of the cedar, which 
is so beautiful an emblem of service and 
steady growth upward, fuller to me of sug- 
gestion than any other of the Bible-named 
trees of which it is written, " Break forth 
into singing, O forest, and every tree 
therein, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob. " 
. . . . " All the trees of the forest shall clap 
their hands," — " the trees of the wood shall 
rejoice at the presence of the Lord." No 
wonder trees and their language are so voice- 
ful, when every breeze is thus a whispered 
" Praise the Lord," every stirring of the 
branches a repetition of " O ye winds of 
God, bless ye the Lord: praise Him, and 
magnify Him forever." — " Even the dead 
leaves at our feet, and the skeleton trees 
above us, give us a sort of infant school 
lesson in human history, teaching us to 
spell some syllables of the promise of being 
once more clothed upon " — thus Caroline 
Fox writes, and she adds : " And what shall 
we make of the evergreens ? I think I 
know human evergreens too, w^hose change 
is but a translation." 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. 57 

To return to the emblem thought — How- 
full it is of blessing for those of whom the 
Lord said, " I w T ill heal .... I will love free- 
ly," for we know it is His love, that gives us 
the power of loving, as w^ell as the power to 
"grow as the vine, the scent thereof as the 
wine of Lebanon. " What a full type, I re- 
peat, this is of Christian service; how it 
pictures the liberal soul that in its giving 
out-reaches the narrow limit of self, and self- 
ishness; and of the tender heart too, that 
goes forth on gentle errands of mercy for 
the comforting and the healing of the sor- 
rowful and suffering, with a sweetness of 
deed that is like the fragrant penetrating 
of the reviving balsam, and strength-giving 
as the "wine of Lebanon." 

I will not call these thoughts a wandering 
from our subject, for they all echo with 
hints of service. And now, I am wonder- 
ing, will you assent to the words I chose as 
an index for our meditations to group 
about as we ponder work. I quote them 
from one who had tested their truth not 
merely by theory, but by the crucial test of 
daily experience. 

"I believe," thus he says, "that the no- 



5 8 THOUGHTS ON WORK. 

blest discipline which life affords, is the 
daily wear and tear of petty annoyances, 
the little discomforts, pains, and burdens 
of ordinary life; thus the best work for 
Heaven is done in the home." If we agree 
to this, then we believe that all God sends 
to each human soul must have a sacred 
meaning, however trivial it may seem to our 
dim-eyed seeing. With what a glory that 
belief illumines life, making even the dullest 
task glow with a brightness, brighter than 
any light that ever yet shone on land or sea. 
But, alas, seldom do we mount high 
enough to look beyond the mist of the pres- 
ent; seldom do we realize work is a conse- 
crated thing. And yet, the divine conse- 
cration of labor is just as real a transmuting 
power now, as when first it laid its touch 
on the humble work of the humble Naza- 
reth workshop. Now, as then, it can fit the 
bits of what we call "daily drudgery " into 
jewel places in the life patterns God has 
given us each to " work out." Patterns all 
so different, for no two lives are alike, and 
yet, spite this endless variety, the object of 
all life is the same, for God would have us 
all "conformed to the image of Christ. " 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. ~g 

Do you ask, "When the aim is one, why 
are the ways leading to its accomplishment 
so varied ? " 

Like many another question, we do not 
find the answer till we have followed Christ 
for long, for our love for Him is like all 
true love, a thing of progress, and the 
longer we follow, the longer we love, the 
more we understand, and yet He leads 
Christians who are far on only by a step at 
a time. 

And the answering of our questions, the 
ever repeating "why," like our times of 
service, have their seasons for fruit. It is 
not ours to choose when these seasons 
come, but it is ours to do His will: ours to 
keep ever on the watch, ready to follow His 
bidding, even if it be naught more than the 
being "faithful in that which is least,'' re- 
membering that least leads on to the " faith- 
ful in much." 

You tell me that you admit all this, nev- 
ertheless it still perplexes you, that so much 
time is spent in doing things that do not 
any of them seem really worth doing. 

I know one often feels so, and yet, if there 
is a u must be " in the tasks, we need not 



60 THOUGHTS ON WORK. 

trouble as to their worth, however little they 
may seem, judged by a merely human esti- 
mate of value. This is one of the lessons 
we are to learn from the widow with her 
"two mites," and from the woman's bring- 
ing the weary Prophet " the little cake." So 
your perplexity is no new difficulty; earnest 
souls, eager after service for Christ's sake, 
have stumbled over it, ever since souls first 
began to seek to be "rich toward God." I 
know all about it, for many an hour I, too, 
have spent in that valley of shadows, and I 
hear the very sigh in your voice as you ask: 
" What is the use of this daily repetition of 
duties?" 

I might fill a page with answers to that 
question, but I will linger to note only 
" one use " that helps me most in meeting 
and accomplishing what you call "dull, ma- 
terial work." It is, the asking my heart: 
May not these very things, that I find so 
irksome, from their seeming unimportance, 
hold the very opportunity my soul needs 
for the learning of what it means to submit 

my will to God's? And, anything which 

helps toward that never can be called use- 
less. In God's sight, the spirit in which 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. 6 1 

we serve is so much more than the service. 
And is there not a solemn purpose in the 
very fact, that the duties — most of them — 
we are called to perform are little tasks ? 
Are we not, even the very best of us, in 
danger of dwelling on what we do, rather 
than what we are; and nothing helps to keep 
us lowly in heart like the small self-denials, 
for what is more humbling than the finding 
even they cost an effort — while nothing re- 
veals our innate pride of heart more surely 
than our ready willingness for great duties, 
our slow lagging over the lowly and com- 
monplace. 

Yes, it is true, to the demands of the high 
occasion for service, we rise like birds wing- 
ing an upward flight, but to meet the hum- 
drum everyday occasions with the eagerness 
and courage of a cheerful doer — Ah ! that 
is not so easy. 

In truth, there is only one way by which 
we can meet them thus, and that is, by re- 
membering God made us as we are : He 
linked mind with body, the material with the 
spiritual, and we must take care of the one 
for the sake of the other, even if it does in- 
volve a somewhat tiresome doing " over and 



62 THOUGHTS ON WORK. 

over" of daily duties, for they are duties. 
And, surely, we can trust God to make us 
all spirit, when we have learned the Heaven- 
preparing lesson of " little things," and no 
longer need the discipline of the body. 

Let us strive, then, to go on bravely, for if 
we do we will find even "the plainest path 
of duty " admits of the " stamping daily 
things with beauty." 

Another thought comes to me just here, 
that will, I think, prove helpful to us both. 
It is, that these " daily duties," like the 
husks which encircle the full-eared corn, 
have in them issues that reach far beyond the 
seen, even on to the "unseen and eternal." 
We are slow learners, we scholars in God's 
school, and many a tender leading, many an 
unfolding of His guidance is often required 
before we come to know this ; often much 
of disappointment and suffering is needed, 
too, but when at last we do catch a glimpse 
of the truth that life's incompleteness here 
is but the prelude to completeness there y then 
every hour, and every task that fills it, be- 
comes part of the oneness, the vast whole 
toward which our souls expand and reach 
out, as flowers reach out toward sunshine. 



THOUGHTS ON WORK. 63 

In the light of this blessed Hope, which 
tells of the illimitable Future, how even 
now, while our horizon is bounded by the 
limitations of the present, we yet begin to 
know something of the glory of our Here- 
after ; for though dwellers on earth, we are 
heirs of Heaven, "joint heirs with Christ. ,, 
And — How near earth is to Heaven ! So 
near ! — for 

11 Upward steals the life of man, 
As the sunshine from the wall : 
From the wall into the sky : 
From the roof along the spire. 
Ah ! the souls of those that die 
Are but sunbeams lifted higher." 

I have strayed from your perplexity re- 
garding " useless work," a complaint, I 
think, you will never make again, now that 
we have seen even the most homely toil is 
stamped with the royal seal, "Do all in the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. " 

Every act, then, consecrate as "unto 
Him.' , Let that be the keynote of service, 
and obedience will be its harmony. 

And, though the learning of simple child- 
like obedience may be a hard lesson, we 



64 THOUGHTS ON WORK. 

know that the habit of obedience here is 
worth all it costs to acquire, since it will fit 
us for future service there. For 

"Time and obedience are enough, 
And thou a saint shall be." 



RICH TOWARD GOD. 



" Rich toward God." 

Luke xii. 21, 



We share in what is infinite ; 'tis ours, 
For we and it alike are Thine." 

Faber, 



IV. 
RICH TOWARD GOD. 

RICH toward God ! " I used those 
words as we pondered work, and 
ever since they have been knocking at the 
door of my heart, as though asking what I 
meant by them. 

You remember the Gospel chapter, Luke 
12th, in which they are recorded, and where 
they nil a mid-way place among a group of 
parables that all have to do with the deep 
things of the Spirit. For, if you will but 

study that chapter, dear H , verse by 

verse, you will find many an unexpected 
lesson enfolded with its simplest teach- 
ings, reminding one of the flowers we find 
in spring among the grass-blades of a sunny 
meadow. 

Teachings that are, too, like a succession 
of vivid panoramic portrayals of the under- 
lying foundation truth, that "a man's life 

(67) 



68 RICH TOWARD GOD. 

consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth." As our Sav- 
iour gave utterance to this sequel, as it were, 
to the " Sermon on the Mount," the fact that 
there were a gathered together " an " innu- 
merable multitude of people,'' straightway 
makes plain why He impressed the lessons 
He taught by a series of simple metaphors, 
all suggested by objects and pursuits with 
which even the most unlearned among His 
hearers were familiar. 

It explains, too, the why of contrasts 
sharply defined as darkness and light, a hid- 
den-away closet and an open house-top, and 
also the emblem of birds, commonest of all 
the winged tribes, sparrows, five sold for two 
farthings ! — But these teachings were hardly 
more than outline lessons, while in fuller 
detail glows the parable out of which we 
cull the necessity of being " rich toward 
God." 

It is a wonderfully life-like picture, spite 
the eighteen centuries that divide now from 
then. We see it all as distinctly as we see 
some bold head-land that rises up out of 
well-nigh encircling sea-waves. 

The portly, rich man, looking on his broad 



RICH TOWARD GOD. 6q 

fields that had brought forth so plentifully, 
planning the pulling down of the already 
ample barns that still greater may be made 
ready for the ingathering of the " goods 
that are to be laid up for many years." And 
then — how the picture changes — a shadow 
falls over the fair scene of earthly prosperity, 
as though it were born out of the very sun- 
shine of the man's security, in the wealth of 
that ripened harvest. And in the brief com- 
pass of four lines we are taught the power- 
lessness of worldly possessions to secure 
worldly permanence, by a flash of truth that 
like some lamp in a lighthouse tower, has 
ever since shown a warning beam, lighting 
up the words, " So is he that layeth up treas- 
ures for himself and is not rich toward God." 
The value of all this for you and me, dear 

H , is that it brings us to the question : 

"How can we attain the spiritual grace 
of being rich toward God ? *' And the re- 
ply is just the reverse of the world's way of 
estimating riches — Christ Himself gives 
us the answer, saying, " Learn of Me, for I 
am meek and lowly of heart." 

Lowliness of heart combined with high 
effort and earnest struggle for success, truly 



yo RICH TOWARD GOD. 

the one seems opposed to the other, and 
according to our human-heart interpre- 
tation they are ; but in Christ they be- 
come reconciled, for "in Him " we find the 
deep harmony of truth, and learn how hu- 
mility and aspiration, the knowledge of the 
soul's sinfulness, and the knowledge of 
its boundless capacities, can walk hand in 
hand the path of this earthly pilgrimage, 
because " God's answer to man's constant as- 
piration heavenward, the impersonated bond 
between God and man is a c Mediator,' as 
Scripture terms it, who bridges over the 
chasm which sin has opened between earth 
and Heaven." Bridges, too, over all the seem- 
ing contradictions which only exist because 
our understanding is clogged by earthly 
trammels, and hence we will need to open our 
souls wide to take in what it means, to have 
a heart so truly lowly that it is rich toward 
God. But before we ponder this, let us 
linger for a while amid the lessons of the 
grass-blades, and the lilies, and the birds 
which have neither storehouse nor barn, and 
yet God feedeth them, and : 

" It was not a poet's dream, 
An idle vaunt of song. 



RICH TOWARD GOD. y x 

11 Which bids us see in heaven and earth, 
In all fair things around, 
Strong yearnings for a blest new birth 
With sinless glories crowned ! 

11 Which bids us hear at each sweet pause 
From care and want and toil, 
When dewy eve her curtain draws 
Over the day's turmoil. 

" In the low chant of wakeful birds, 
In the deep weltering flood, 
In whispering leaves, these solemn words — 
1 God made us all for good ! ' 

" All true, all faultless, all in tune, 
Creation's wondrous choir, 
Opened in mystic unison, 
To last till time expire. 

" And still it lasts : by day and night, 
With one consenting voice 
All hymn Thy glory, Lord, aright, 
All worship and rejoice.'* 

These verses of Keble's are so full of re- 
freshment for the weary mind as well as for 
the fearful heart, I have copied them for 
you, for I think there is no refreshment for 
a tired mind like that which nature sup- 
plies, and surely this is one reason why our 



7 2 RICH TOWARD GOD. 

Saviour made such frequent use of the 
beauty of God's world. And there is such 
a tender mindfulness for those of His chil- 
dren whose seeing of Nature's loveliness is 
bounded by limited out-looks, in His fre- 
quent use of types that are freighted with 
significance, even to those who live shut in 
by the brick walls of crowded cities. 

For scarce one of us is too poor to own a 
plant; and whoever watches the unfolding 
of a flower can hear a voice from God. We 
can all feel the breath of the wind, too, and 
see the face of the sky. And even though 
it be but a patch of blue, we can study its 
changing hues, and there is space enough 
for clouds to float, space enough to catch 
the golden light of sunset, the rosy glory 
of sunrise: space enough for stars to twin- 
kle. And these bits of nature have each a 
speech of their own, and if we fail to hear, 
we miss a part of the blessing the Lord has 
made a free gift to every dweller on this 
earth of His. 

When next you are weary in mind or 
body, test the truth of this, and go and have 
a talk with Nature. Even if it be no more 
than a skyward look through the frame of 



RICH TOWARD GOD. 73 

a window casement; for though your gaze 
is limited, God's sky is boundless. 

As for the lesson the lilies and the birds 
teach of our Heavenly Father's providing 
care, there is no need for me to guide you 
to it. Verily, it is an arch spanning like 
that sign in the sky — the bow of promise — 
from the land of fearfulness and doubt over 
to the peaceful shore of trust, and I would 
fain bid you note the tenderness that like a 
flower-strewn pathway, leads on to the 
after-part of the chapter which deals with 
the seeking of God's kingdom. 

How plain it becomes that, in that seek- 
ing consists in part the being " rich toward 
God." 

Think — every day we ask for these riches 
when we pray, "Thy kingdom come." And 
we can only obtain them as we give our 
souls to God, beseeching Him to fill them 
with His fulness, helping us to obey Him, 
and manifesting to us, that our soul's true 
life is a resurrection-life, hence it demands 
death to self and self-seeking, because we 
seek a kingdom that is not of this world, 
but "rich toward God." Rich, with no 
very great things, but with the little daily 



74 RICH TOWARD GOD. 

self-denials, the speaking a cheerful word 
when the heart is weary, the patient, steady- 
performance of duties that come with every 
returning day — little things, I repeat, and 
yet they contain the riches with which God 
is well pleased. For if rendered in the 
obedience of faith, they lead on to the being 
"holy and without blame before Him in 
love." No wonder our hearts fail when we 
think of the "full consecration'' such a 
serving of the Lord requires, for we fall so 
far backward, even when we are striving to 

reach onward. But that is the part we 

are not to think of, for our only hope of 
final victory is the looking away from self — 
Up y all the time, to our King. And if our 
gaze is thus fixed on Him, we will have no 
time to think of ourselves, we will be every 
moment occupied in the doing "our duty 
in that state wherein it has pleased God to 
call us." A state of lowliness of mind as 
we learned from our Saviour's words, to 
which I said we would return, for we both 
felt we needed to "look deep" before we 
found the real heart of the lowly, the 
"blessed poor in spirit," to whom is prom- 
ised, "theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." 



RICH TOWARD GOD. 



75 



The "poor in spirit " ? Who are they? 
What does the word mean, when used in its 
spiritual sense ? 

Thus you ask — and I reply. To be poor 
in spirit we must know and feel our poor- 
ness, and hence our entire dependence upon 
God; this is the essence of Scriptural meek- 
ness, and it implies the recognition of the 
truth that if there be anything in us, we did 
not originate that goodness, but it is a gift 
from the One of all goodness. The history 
of Moses, the man called "the meekest 
among men," brings out this as clearly as 
sunlight brings out and sharply defines 
against the blue sky the network of the 
leafless branches that are the crown of tree- 
tops in winter. You remember how Moses 
acknowledged he was nothing in himself. 
"And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that 
I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should 
bring forth the children of Israel out of 
Egypt?" "And God said unto Moses, I 

am that I am Thus shalt thou say 

unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent 
me unto you " — and again, " Moses said 
unto the Lord, O, my Lord, I am not elo- 
quent .... but am slow of speech, and of 



7 6 RICH TOWARD GOD. 

a slow tongue." " And the Lord said unto 
him, Who hath made man's mouth ? . . . . 
Have not I, the Lord ? . . . . Now, there- 
fore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and 
teach thee what thou shalt say." No room 
left for pride, for self-importance — all is of 
God. 

No lesson in the Bible seems to me so 
full of true lowliness of heart, or more 
plainly proves that the recognition of " pov- 
erty of spirit is the law of the kingdom of 
Heaven." God grant it may be graven on 
our hearts, for then it will waken a knowl- 
edge of His goodness and presence, reveal- 
ing that all we have of love, thought, as- 
piration, and power comes from Him ; and 
this will so fill us with a sense of gratitude, 
that even here below we will know some- 
thing of the happiness and the blessedness 
of Heaven. It will be a knowledge, too, 
that leads to the " Cleft in the Rock," where 
we may flee for shelter amid the troubles 
and the fears, the anxieties and the changes 
of this mortal existence, and spite the perils 
and the darkness, seeking shelter there, we 
may abide in " quietness and confidence," 
for the Lord is our Strength and our All. 



RICH TOWARD GOD. yy 

Take "heart of grace," then, dear H , 

and go forward, remembering it is not your 
weak, insufficient self that can accomplish 
the work of either becoming " rich toward 
God," or of leading self forth "out of 
Egypt," but the "I Am will be with thee." 
He will work in you that which you are to 
work out. To aid you in the accomplish- 
ment of this, I copy a thought from Mrs. 
Monsell which has helped me. 

" Get a real living faith in the power of 
the transformed life in you : w T e hang back 
too much in our own nothingness instead 
of having a loving confidence in the power 
of the Holy Ghost to re-create us in Christ 
Jesus. This confidence is the fruit of a 
deeper humility, and a growing simplicity. 
. . . . All you need strive for is to love God 
more, more singly and simply : to still the 
human actings and impulses of your being 
in Him : to love His will for you in every 
little, as well as in every great thing, and to 
bound all your wishes and outgoings within 
the circle of His will. Love is of God ; it 
is a Divine gift ; do not seek to crush it ; 
seek to keep it steadfast, and seek to help 
others by love, and letting their love for 



78 



RICH TOWARD GOD. 



you draw them upward and closer to God, 
the Fount of all love. Oh, how blessed all 
the inner circles of Love are, that all rise up 
and find their centre in God : and then shed 
down upon us rays of His own Divine Love 
and gladness ! If we dwelt more in it we 
should ascend more quickly to Him, even in 
the midst of our busiest life ; and He would 
descend upon us with the full blessedness 
of His own loving Presence. Dw r ell in that 
thought, ' God is Love/ and thus you will 
find an anchor for your soul, sure and stead- 
fast." 

Tell me, dear H , does not all this 

hold the secret wherein consists the being 
" rich toward God " ? I think it does — and 
I think, too, if we strive to live humbly and 
earnestly in the spirit of its teaching, our 
hearts can sing the matin and the even- 
song that Faber calls " The Christian's on 
his march to Heaven,'' and which, in its in- 
terblending of Faith, Hope, and Love, is 
full of the soul's best riches — -"the abiding 
three." 

" Blest is the Faith, divine and strong, 

Of thanks, and praise, an endless fountain, 
Whose life is one perpetual song, 

High up the Saviour's holy mountain. 



RICH TOWARD GOD. 

" Blest is the Hope that holds to God — 
In doubt and darkness still unshaken, 
And sings along the heavenly road, 

Sweetest, when most it seems forsaken. 

11 Blest is the Love that cannot love 

Aught that earth gives of best and brightest ; 
Whose raptures thrill like saints above, 
Most when its earthly gifts are lightest. 

" Blest is the Time that in the eye 

Of God its hopeful watch is keeping, 
And grows into eternity, 
Like noiseless trees when men are sleeping." 



79 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 



" Cast thy bread upon the waters : for thou shalt 
find it after many days." 



Ecc. ii. i. 



44 Keep on sowing, 
God will cause the seed to grow 

Faster than your knowing ; 
Nothing e'er is sown in vain 

If, His voice obeying, 
You look upward for the rain 

And falter not in praying." 



V. 

BREAD UPON THE WATERS 

"/"""^AST thy bread upon the waters, for 
V_^ thou shalt find it after many days." 
This is the golden text that headed a Sab- 
bath-school paper, on a June Sunday not 
long ago. And as I strove — aided by the 
band of bright young maidens who formed 
my class — to find its heart of meaning, it 
occurred to me that our findings might 
prove to you, dear H , a practical sup- 
plement to " Thoughts on Work," and so I 
pass them on. 

The explanation of the verse as given by 
commentators has never satisfied me. I 
think it holds a much broader and fuller 
significance than that which merely links it 
to the doing of kindly deeds, and in seeking 
this, I did with it much as I would have 
done with a bunch of fragrant violets. I 
divided it, giving part to one, and part to 

(33) 



84 BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

another of my scholars, bidding them all 
find the inner meaning that clusters around 
Bible words as fragrance breathes out in 
sweet odors from flowers. 

" Cast thy bread," was the share that fell 
to Emily Gray ; "upon the waters," Fannie 
Buck's ; " for thou shalt find it," Ellen Jor- 
dan's ; Grace Flint's, "after many days." 

The other members of the class were to 
aid in the interpretations in a general way, 
as a band of singers make up a chorus. 

"Cast thy bread." Emily Gray lingered 
over the word cast only long enough to pic- 
ture, in the glowing language that belongs 
to youth, a generous sower giving of his very 
best, — even his bread which is called " the 
staff of life." 

As to what that bread meant she entered 
more into detail, for it is a very full word 
as used in Scripture. 

"Give us our daily bread." "That is 
what we ask the Heavenly Father to be- 
stow," thus Emily said, and though she was 
a new comer into the fold of Christ she 
already well knew the followers of the Lord 
Jesus when they use the word bread, are to 
think of something deeper than the mere 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 85 

nourishment and sustenance of the body — 
though surely that is one of its mean- 
ings. She knew they who hunger in the 
Gospel sense interpret the words as asking : 
" Give us the Bread of Thy strength, the 
gift of Thy grace." And that as the soul 
is more than the body, we should give the 
pre-eminence in our thoughts and prayers to 
spiritual nourishment rather than to phys- 
ical strength. If this is what the Gospel 
bread signifies, does not the command, 
"cast thy bread," refer to a giving, that 
reaches deep as the wants of the soul, full 
as much as it does to the providing for the 
destitute ? I think it does. 

As Emily dwelt on this bread of heart- 
kindness — which is in the power of all to 
give — and which imbues all sweet charities 
with the tenderness of a sympathy that far 
out-runs in value mere material aid, the word 
bread became luminous with Heavenly ra- 
diance, for, so plain she made the truth that 
the leaven that leaveneth is Love. She bade 
us note, too, the significance of this spiritual 
bread as interlinked by association with 
life's discipline, using by way of illustration 
the ever-recurring harvest-time parable. 



%6 BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

First, the ripened grain, reaped with sharp 
sickle, separated by the stroke of heavy 
flail — wheat from chaff, and then ground by 
swift wheel that the very heart of it may be 
made ready to supply food for thousands. 
Yes, her mind grasped in all its fulness 
this nature-taught lesson, that if we would 
give our very best broadcast, it must cost 
us something, requiring, perchance, like the 
grain, to be perfected for use by mower's 
sickle, thresher's flail, and crushing wheel ! 
It is Robertson who writes: "Tenderness 
is got by suffering, both physical and men- 
tal. This was Christ's own qualification 
for sympathy. ' We have not an High- 
Priest which cannot be touched with the 
feeling of our infirmities : but was in all 
points tempted as we are.' Would you 
give something beyond commonplace con- 
solation to a wounded spirit ? Would you 
minister to doubt, to the loneliness of life ? — ■ 
then you must suffer — being tempted." To 
return to Emily Gray's explanation of the 
words, she maintained that they implied, 
that all must cast forth something, and that 
there was evil bread as well as good. Hence 
we must be either scattering pure thoughts, 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. gy 

gentle deeds, upward-helping aspirations 
that are born out of Love, or evil thoughts, 
towering ambitions, and unlovely deeds. 
And then she asked — "Would the evil as 
well as the good, come floating back to us 
again, like drift-wood on the sea of time ? " 
Close following this last thought of Emi- 
ly's, and as an echo of it, came Fannie 
Buck's definition of "upon the waters/' — 
for she summed it up in a brief but mean- 
ingful quotation from Bryant's poem : 

" A Mighty Hand, from an exhaustless urn, 
Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years 

Among the nations 

They gather up again and softly bear, 

All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed, 

.... All that in them was good, 

Noble, and truly great, and worthy of love. ,, 

My turn to speak to these earnest-hearted 
girls came then. Do you wonder I pointed 
their thoughts to our Saviour's use of the 
word bread ? " Jesus said, .... Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, .... My Father 
giveth you the true Bread from Heaven : 
For the Bread of God is He which cometh 
down from Heaven and giveth His life unto 



gg BREAD UPON THE WATERS, 

the world." — "And Jesus said unto them, 

I am the Bread of Life I am that 

Bread of Life. .... This is the Bread 
which cometh down from Heaven, that a 
man may eat thereof, and not die. I am 
the living Bread."— " And He took Bread, 
and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave 
unto them, saying, This is my body which 
is given for you." 

Bread, a type of Life ! — Resurrection, 
Life! — For though as the two disciples 
walked toward Emmaus, Jesus Himself 
" drew near and went with them," they knew 
Him not, till, when " as He sat at meat with 
them, He took bread, and blessed and brake 
it, and gave to them : and their eyes were 
opened." .... And " the Lord was known 
of them in the breaking of the Bread." 

While not within the confines of the text 
which is the index of this meditation, I cannot 
refrain from sharing with you the thoughts 
that grow out of this special revelation of 
the risen Christ, and which must always 
be associated with the " breaking of Bread." 
For, to quote Canon Westcott, " that which 
was enacted on the evening of the first 
Lord's day has been fulfilled, and is ful- 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. $g 

filled, no less surely and tenderly through 
the experience of all believers. Christ 
draws near to us now, as to those unknown 
wayfarers, with purposes of love." 

" Christ draws near to us when in the sa- 
cred intercourse of friendship we speak of 
our highest hopes and of our greatest sor- 
rows .... and talk openly of that which 
we know to lie deepest in our nature." 

" Christ draws near to us at the sad sea- 
son when He seems to have been finally 
taken away, if we are not ashamed to con- 
fess, in the apparent disappointment of our 
hopes, that we are still His disciples." 

" Christ draws near to us when at some 
solemn appeal, we pause on our journey, 
and stand in wondering sorrow perhaps, 
not knowing what answer to give to an un- 
expected and importunate questioner whose 
words touch us to the quick." 

" Christ draws near to us at the very cri- 
sis when we strive to give distinctness to 
our misgivings and to our difficulties. He 
asks us to speak freely to Him, and accepts 
the most imperfect confession of a sincere 
faith as the basis of His tender discipline." 

" Christ draws near to us when humbly 



g BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

and honestly we ponder His word. The 
study is difficult — far more difficult than 
we commonly suppose, and far more fruit- 
ful — but He illuminates the dark places, 
and through a better understanding of the 
letter guides us to a warmer sympathy with 
the spirit.' , 

" Christ draws near to us when we take 
gJadly the reproof which reveals to us our 
ignorance and our coldness, and resolutely 
strive to retain in our company the Teacher, 
who by sharp methods has made us better 
able to see the truth." 

" Christ draws near to us when we are 
bidden to draw near to Him at His Holy 
Table, and there gives us back with His 
blessing the offerings which we have brought 
to Him." 

" So Christ draws near to us, or at least 
He waits to draw near to us, in the mani- 
fold changes of our mortal life, near to us 
as we go in and go out in the fulfilment of 
our common duties, near to us when we are 
reassembled in our homes, near to us in the 
time of trial, and in the hour of death." 

This is a wide digression — but you will 
not think it too wide, if it helps to bring 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. g T 

Him — the Lord of Life — nearer and yet 
nearer. We left our pondering on the cast- 
ing of "bread on the waters" just as we 
had come to the knowledge that our every 
deed and thought is in very truth either 
a flower or a weed cast on that broad flow- 
ing current — the years of our lives. 

Flowers and weeds! All to float back 
again either in blessed peace-giving remem- 
brances, or in bitter remorse, wakening re- 
grets as the tide turns, and the out-going 
changes into the in-coming. For while in 
one sense if we are Christians, we are not to 
look back — but only forward — vet in an- 
other, as long as we stay here on earth, it 
holds true — " as ye sow, so shall ye reap." 

And now, I will not tarry over the other 
"meanings " my girls found, for they are so 
plain-sighted you know them already. I 
only note the foregone by way of help to- 
ward the "sowing" that is a part of the 
blessed ministry that belongs to the daily 
home and social life that surrounds you — 
and the still greater work you have to do 
in the heart, where is planted the root that 
up-springs into outward life — remember, it 
is the root at which God looks. His eye 



q 2 BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

sees beyond the outward, and it is what 
we are, that He regards, not what we seem 
to be. 

And, in this heart-garden there need be 
no weed sowing, if we plant according to 
His bidding in " faith and patience," re- 
membering love to Christ is the sure root 
of love to our neighbor, just as it is the 
foundation of service, and the rule of service 
is thoughtfulness. Hence if we are really 
to work for Christ "we must consider more 
patiently than we commonly do the require- 
ments of those whom we have to serve. 
For there is no one method for all. Here, 
there is need for the tenderest simplicity: 
there, of the wisest authority: there, of the 
ripest result of long reflection." 

This extract will, I think, give you in 
suggestion what you ask for when you say: 
" Please add a page all hedged in by 
choughts of woman's work for woman/' for 
it bounds all service by "love, considerate 
thoughtfulness, and self-surrender/' 

As for woman's special work, we who live 
in this nineteenth century are so richly 
blessed in the recognition of our work, and 
thoughts of and for it are so multiplied, I 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. g^ 

have not so much as one fresh blossom to 
offer, by way of suggestion on the subject. 
Nevertheless, I will bid you remember, for 
those who have "no definite work " there is 
always "the indefinite" calling out to be 
done. And if your lot in life is cast among 
those who need make no effort for personal 
support, it in no way shuts you out from 
service, for God has given every soul a work 
to do for Him, even if it be no more than 
the following up the " opportunities " others 
are forced to pass by, because, having a set 
task to perform, limits out-reaching effort, 
and yet it is a fact that those whose lives 
are most full of the "must be done" are 
the very ones who are wont to be ready for 
still more service. 

What do I mean by following up oppor- 
tunities ? — The ample means for mental 
culture, and the sunshine that has enfolded 
your life, suggests a reply. For if you 
gather up the fragments of knowledge — and 
of brightness by which you have been 
blessed, and go forth among those less 
favored, and share these fragments with 
them, you will know my meaning. Only be 
very sure to let them be true bits of sun- 



94 BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

shine. There are so many rays of light 
waiting to be thus sent forth on errands of 
comfort, and often their delivery demands 
no more than the giving of a flower, or the 
meeting some lonely heart with a kindly 
smile, or a tender word of cheer and good- 
will. 

And these " messages " involve no elabo- 
rate system of organization, but are best 
offered simply and quietly. But simple 
though they be, they do demand the life- 
warming conviction that can only come 
when they are "done unto Him." If thus 
done — wonderful as it seems — it may be His 
will to take your deeds as He did the mul- 
tiplying loaves, and bless them into portions 
for many ! 

In the matter of more practical service 
among women— your sisters — there always 
will be work and work to be done by those 
who have ample means ; for as long as this 
world lasts, it is written, " The poor shall 
never cease out of the land, therefore I com- 
mand thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine 
hand wide to thy poor and thy needy " 
(Deut. xv. n). 

Yes — " the poor ye have with you always," 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 



95 



thus our Saviour said, too, and I think He 
meant us to remember when we pray for 
" daily bread," that " giving and receiving " 
are so interwoven in His blessed dispensa- 
tion that as we ask bread from Him, we are 
to offer bread to Him by living in daily ful- 
filment of the spirit of His command, " In- 
asmuch as ye do it unto the least of these 
my brethren, ye do it unto Me. 91 

You ask me to mention some of the sim- 
ple ways which I have found most success- 
ful in approaching hearts. Among them, 
flowers fill a large place — their language is 
so universal ; and the lending of books, 
too, I have found very helpful — notice I say 
lending, for that gives a sense of sharing our 
good things with others that making a gift 
sometimes fails in. And in the matter of 
books you will be surprised by the quick 
response you will meet to thoughts of 
beauty — and higher things. I have a copy 
of "The Story of Ida," well-nigh worn out 
by its much going to and fro among those 
whom we are wont to call the " poorer 
classes," though often I think they are the 
richer ! You will find too, if you try it, 
an hour or so spent several times a week 



9 6 BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

in helping young girls, whose lot in life is 
to be " working women " — to find a motive 
in even the most homely tasks, will prove 
a very fruitful opening, that points on to 
spiritual things. And never yet have I met 
one so dull but that after a little upward 
leading, they have caught a ray of light from 
old Herbert's words : 

" Teach me, my God and King, 
In all things Thee to see, 
And what I do in anything, 
To do it as for Thee. 

" All may of Thee partake : 
Nothing can be so mean 
Which with this tincture — for Thy sake — 
Will not grow bright and clean. 

st A servant with this clause, 
Makes drudgery divine : 
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws 
Makes that and th' action fine. 

" This is the famous stone 
That turneth all to gold : 
For that which God doth touch and own 
Cannot for less be told." 

And now passing on to a class a grade 
higher in social rank — think of the many 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. gj 

young women who are striving to support 
themselves, and to whom a few lessons from 
either yourself or a good master — which your 
means would enable you to supply — would 
be a life-long boon. Then, too, one can, 
even by a hint or two, so help those who 
have not had the advantages we have had 
in acquiring skill with their hands to exe- 
cute the dainty bits of work by which 
women can help themselves nowadays. 

An hour's talk on color, will serve to 
guide a quick-minded girl from a crude use 
of mis-matching tints to a soft blending of 
harmonious shades that will increase the 
value of her work to double its aforetime 
compensation. 

But your own heart w r ill tell you better 
than I can, how to help others who are 
struggling after the material support which 
encompasses you as bountifully as the air 
you breathe. 

If now and then, in the seeking thus to 
cast your "bread upon the waters," you 
fail, do not miss the lesson of failure, for it 
is a lesson well worth learning, if it leads to 
more dependence on God. Yes — the very 
fact of failure shows us " that we have ex^ 
7 



og BREAD UPON THE WATERS. 

pected too much from ourselves, and too 
little from God." 

"We have set ourselves to do this or that 
for Him, instead of trusting Him to do it 
for us, and then we have said, ' Alas, I have 
no power/ forgetting that He has, whereas 
our plea should be, 6 Now, Lord, the work is 
Thine ; how can I dare to doubt the power 
is Thine also, even to sanctify me wholly and 
preserve me blameless unto the coming of 
Thy Son/ " 

I remember once reading these words, 
and as they have stayed in my heart help- 
fully, I think they may also aid you, so I 
pass them on, for it is one way of " casting 
bread on the waters," this sending truths 
that have helped us, on to others. Hence I 
will add to it Mrs. Browning's heart and pur- 
pose-questioning lines : 

* ' What are we set on earth for ? — say, to toil— 
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines, 
For all the heat thro' day, till it declines, 
And Death's wild curfew shall from work assoil. 
God did anoint them with His odorous oil, 
To wrestle, not to reign: and He assigns 
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, 
For younger fellow-workers of the soil, 



BREAD UPON THE WATERS. gg 

To wear for amulets. So others shall 
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, 
From thy heart and thy hand, and thy brave cheer, 
And God's grace fructify, through thee to all. 
The least flower with a brimming cup may stand 
And share its dew-drops with another near." 



CHASTENING. 



" Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth If 

ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with 

sons." 

Heb. xii. 6, 7. 

" Whatsoe'er betideth, night or day, 
Know His love for thee provideth good alway." 

Remember, 

"Just as sweetness comes from the bark of the cin- 
namon when bruised, so can the spirit of the Cross of 
Christ bring beauty and holiness and peace out of the 
bruised and broken heart." 

Robertson. 



VI. 

CHASTENING. 

YOU ask me, dear H , to tell you 
in detail, what I meant, when, as we 
pondered on " quietness," I referred to 
God's love in chastening. 

You say, the verse, "Whom the Lord 
loveth He chasteneth," is dull and cold to 
you, all void of meaning. 

Ah! how can I make it warm and life- 
like. How can I open your eyes to see, it 
is Love that leads to His infinite rest, even 
though it be by a path, tear-strewn all the 
way. And yet, unless you do come to know 
this, you miss a blessed part of your heri- 
tage as a child of God. For, no one can 
doubt that the Christian is chastened, and 
that he has a cross to" carry; the Bible is 
full of the lesson. At the same time it 
makes plain the truth, that the preparation 
God makes for all, saints and sinners alike, 

(103) 



I04 CHASTENING. 

is equal. But — and here comes in the dif- 
ference, that up-wells in refreshment from 
the "brook in the way" — while it is true that 
God loves all, His love only reaches a few 
because it is appropriated by but few. 
Hence, while He sends what may be chas- 
tening to all, it becomes such only to those 
who are in the right spirit, for they only 
have the heart of faith that knows love is 
there, even though hidden from sight. 

Do you catch my meaning? All are His 
sheep, but some do not, because they will 
not, hear His Voice. So that practically 
He only leads His own; and in regard to 
the leading of chastening, I do not believe 
when we enter upon the Christian life we 
enter under a new dispensation, but rather 
into a new relation. We change toward 
God. He does not change toward us. He 
deals with us just as He dealt before, but 
where, as formerly, our hearts were like 
smooth-surfaced stones, from which the rain 
ran off in wasted streamlets, now they have 
become rich earth, and it falls on soil 
ready to absorb its every drop, and we find 
what before was a trial crushing us, has be- 
come a chastening rod, for we endure chas- 



CHASTENING. 1Q j 

tening. This is the secret of God's dealing 
with us as with sons. For remember, it is 
our position toward God that brings us into 
a child's place. And acquiescence in His 
will is the child's own special mark of son- 
ship, the proof of our being in harmony 
with His dealing. So you see it is not that 
any new trials and struggles have come ; 
but, some are met for the first time, we con- 
quer some that before conquered us — we 
take up our cross: we bear it for the first 
time, but it is the same old cross that 
crushed us before we came to Christ. To 
quote from one who thought much on this 
subject: "The call that bade us come to 
Him, was not a call into anew phenomenal 
and objective life, but into harmony with 
our present life. It is a practical call which 
brings us into no new trials and duties, but 
it brings us into harmony with the old." 
In other words, 

*• The cross on Golgotha will never save thy soul, 
The cross in thine own heart alone can make it whole." 

I think, too, we mistake when we speak 
of God's loving particularly, in our hours 
of trouble, for God's love is unchanging. 



io 6 CHASTENING. 

It is written, "I am He that changes not." 
But troubles open our eyes to see His love 
more clearly, that there is no doubt of, and 
love means more too, when we are in trouble. 

But I will not tarry over these thoughts ; 
the simple statement is enough, that I be- 
lieve the "new life spoken of in the Bible is 
a new spirit in the old life." A sinner has 
trials, fights with doubts, is disquieted, 
longs for Heaven, has everything of trouble 
that a Christian has, and more too — for to a 
Christian there is a peace in trial, a strength 
given with which to meet it. The fight 
comes to each, but the Christian only has 
the armor. 

As to the denying of self, which is included 
in your thought of chastening. Yes, surely 
we should deny ourselves, give up every- 
thing that keeps Christ out of the first place 
in our hearts and love, but this is merely 
because u we are like patients now, on the 
sick-list as it were, and must wait until we 
reach Heaven and perfect spiritual health 
before it will do for us to indulge our- 
selves." 

Does all this seem to you a bit like preach- 
ing, a bit like bidding you stand in the ves- 



CHASTENING. I0 y 

tibule, when, what you want is to come 
close to the altar — what you want is to feel 
the firm grasp of a faith that shines with 
illumining light through the darkness of 
grief, whispering, though the natural heart 
cries out against it, " God's will is best." 

You can only find this light as you bow 
before His will, then the sense of nearness 
will come too, for when the heart has thus 
bowed, it knoivs the love of chasteni?ig, knows 
that fellowship with Christ which is sor- 
row's crown of consecration — and which is 
all beyond the power of words to tell. 

You will remember the cross we are called 
to bear, if we would be His disciples, is a 
daily cross — and this seems to prove that it 
is self, the self we are to overcome by daily 
inward struggle with the evil in our hearts. 
Thus when we speak of chastening, we mean 
not only outward trials that all lookers-on 
recognize as trials, but the inward subdu- 
ing, the fight of faith in the soul. Without 
the recognition of this inner discipline, w r e 
lose the essence of what chastening really 
means, for we narrow it to the compass of 
the visible trials, the tangible troubles which 
are often but hints of the heart-chastening, 



io 8 CHASTENING. 

the self-conquering, through which we learn 
to yield our wills to God's. 

In all this, how tenderly the Christ is our 
great Exemplar, for "the way in which He 
walked to His glorification is the way we 
must walk to our regeneration. ,, And, if it 
be sometimes a "Calvary way," we know 
He trod every step before us ; we may hear 
at every moment His Voice, saying, " Follow 
thou Me ! " Do you believe this ? If you 
do, then I will g-ive you a little hymn to 
sing— 

" The clouds hang heavy around my way, I cannot see : 
But through the darkness, I believe God leadeth me. 
'Tis sweet to keep my hand in His, while all is dim : 
To close my weary, aching eyes, and follow Him. 
Through many a thorny path He leads my tired feet, 
Through many a path of tears to go, but it is sweet 
To know that He is close to me — my God, my guide — 
He leadeth me, and so I walk, quite satisfied." 

In a former meditation we dwelt on our 
Lord as "A Man of Sorrows "; but the refer- 
ence I now make to " His acquaintance with 
grief," is simply, that by recalling His suf- 
ferings we may be better able to see the 
good of, and the need for sorrow. For, the 
believing that there is a need, even though 



CHASTENING. IO p 

here on earth we may never clearly see its 
" why," is the only way by which we can 
meet the universal existence of sorrow and 
pain, as, spite the anguish they cost, still 
blessings, because they are encompassed 
with God's love. And, even then, with all 
our believing, how hard it is to be recon- 
ciled ! 

I suppose one reason why we cannot un- 
derstand it now, is, that if God made the 
why of His dealings all plain, faith's work 
in the soul would be so lessened ; then there 
is the fact, that we are too much in the sor- 
row now. But, when the cloud is at last 
lifted, then we will see, and understand 
with never a shadow falling across the un- 
broken blue. Yet though we wait for this 
full knowledge, broad glints of light even 
now fall across the " mystery of sorrow." 
And by the radiance of this kindling of our 
darkness, how many a helpful lesson we 
learn. And since the great object of life 
here is to fit us for life There, we may rest 
assured that God will do this fitting in the 
best way, even if it be by laying the axe to 
the root of our heart's dearest earthly treas- 
ures, for the promise is, " Blessed is the man 



IIO CHASTENING. 

Thou chasteneth and teacheth out of Thy 
law, O Lord." 

We must not overlook in our thoughts on 
chastening the great mercy of the fact, that 
we do not know the way, or when our trials 
will come ; for if we did, how we would strive 
to anticipate and prevent them, how we 
would often delay God's work of grace in the 
soul. This hiding of the why of His Provi- 
dence, and sometimes the hiding too of His 
Presence, is, I think, one of the lessons God 
teaches us through the history of His ser- 
vant Moses — for Moses* experience is so full, 
a very " burning bush " of suggestions, 
helping us when we seem all shut in by sor- 
rows. " He said, Thou canst not see my 
face and live." — " I will cover thee with my 
Hand while I pass by." Let the comfort of 
this enfold your heart, when great sorrow 
comes again, for it bids you rest assured, 
even if you cannot see God's face, you can 
know " He will cover you with His Hand." 
His own Word tells you this. — And then the 
afterward ! When His glory has passed by, 
then you shall see the behind part— then — 
when His Providence has done its work in 
your soul, you will know something of the 



CHASTENING. IXI 

love of the zuhy, which passes far beyond any 
aforetime knowledge you ever have had yet. 
And, in the blessed Hereafter you will know 
all the reason of the why. Ah ! it is worth 
the waiting for ! — Think when the night of 
our trial time is passed what a sunrising it 
will be ! And for now — if you have sought 
shelter in the " Rock cleft," then, the very 
glory of His passing by, will be enough for 
you to trim your lamp by. So sit no longer 
in the dark, but turn the leaves of the Book, 
and read the gracious words traced therein 
for just such chastened ones as you and me. 

Tell me, do you not find them broad and 
full enough to span your every need ? Do 
not the chastenings which at first seemed 
so grievous, become sweet tokens of your 
Heavenly Father's care ? 

I am sure they do, if you accept God's 
will as your will, how T ever His chastening 
comes. 

For His way of training hearts is very 
different with His different children. Some 
are called to part with their dearest, whose 
going puts out the sunshine in their hearts 
and homes ; while others are disciplined by 
the strengthening of their dear earthly ties ; 



II2 CHASTENING. 

for by prosperity as well as by affliction the 
Lord chastens His children, and for both 
trials, the trial of love and the trial of pos- 
session, there is the same balm, the balm 
that lies in prayer, for those who know God 
listens, and that, 

" The Saviour giveth 
Daily strength .... 
.... Ask not then, ' When or How/ 
Only bow." 

And now, by way of closing of this many- 
paged meditation on chastening and its les- 
sons, I copy for you a Scotch hymn that 
often comes to my memory when I sit alone 
in the gloaming, and it never comes without, 
like a hand-clasp of good cheer, bidding me 
go on my way amid the shadows of earth's 
changes with a heart calm to meet them 
because they are ordered by God's will. I 
wonder will it hold the same comfort for 
you ? 

" There are blossoms that hae budded, been blicked o* 

the cauld, 
And lammies that hae perished, because they left the 

fauld ; 



CHASTENING. „- 

Bui cower ye in aneath His wings who deed upon the 

tree, 
And gathers in His bosom helpless weans like you and 

me. 
In the warl there's tribulation, in the warl there is woe. 
Then brighten up your armor, and be happy as ye 

gang, 
Though your sky be often clouded, it winna be for 

lang." 



8 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 



" We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 

2 Cor. iii. 18. 

" Says God : Who comes to me an inch through doubl- 
ings dim, 
In blazing light I do approach a yard toward Him." 

Oriental Poetry. 



VII. 
THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

I AM in full sympathy with you, dear 
H , in regard to what you say about 

" religious truth and controversy/' 

Yes, you are right, the very air nowadays 
seems pulsating with what is called " new 
theology," " progressive thought," "ad- 
vanced views," and " widening out-looks.'' 

But w r hile I agree with you that there are 
grave dangers in all this, I think there are 
great blessings, too, and always there is the 
safety-place to which we may flee, for 
" God's Ti-uth is one and abiding" 

Nevertheless, the present bewilderment in 
the breaking up of " creed authority " must 
present a serious phenomenon to all earnest 
minds, marked as it is by modern individ- 
ualism. 

" How are we to account for it ? " you ask. 

The universally acknowledged fact that 

(«7> 



H8 THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

" religion is an indispensable part of man's 
moral and mental out-fit," suggests one re- 
ply : and two causes have contributed to 
deepen this conviction in modern times. 
Canon Liddon tells us: "The first is the 
subjective spirit of the age which insists on 
looking at truth, not as it is, in its utter inde- 
pendence of the mind of man, but as it pre- 
sents itself to man's mind, or rather as man's 
mind in very varying moods approaches 
it. This spirit, while it has weakened 
the public hold upon creeds and Scriptures, 
has directed attention with an intensity un- 
known before our day, to the needs of the 
human mind, and among them to its su- 
preme need of a religion." 

He further writes : " The indispensable- 
ness of religion to human life has also been 
forced on the mind of this generation by a 
deeper study of history." You will see the 
truth of this statement, if you sum up the 
most important historical events, for you 
will then see how " the most profound and 
far-reaching changes have really turned up- 
on religious questions." 

Recall, too, that saying of Goethe's, " The 
deepest subject in the history of the world 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. II9 

and of mankind, and that to which all others 
are subordinate, is the conflict between faith 
and unbelief." 

Realizing all this, we see interest in re- 
ligion is inevitable among the thoughtful 
of our day and generation. But the. practi-\ 
cal question is, " What is it that man seeks 
in seeking religion ? " And this brings us to 
one of the " signs of the time " that troubles 
you, because it seems lacking in the earnest 
reverence with which you fain would have 
all sacred topics encompassed. 

You say, " The most holy truths, from fa- 
miliar discussion have come to be tossed 
about in conversation with a careless irrev- 
erence that thinks more of the theories and 
opinions to be maintained than of the vital 
truth that makes their real value." 

Yes — I know this is so, but, for you, as 
well as for myself, it need not trouble us if 
we keep within the Shadow of His Hand, 
within the sound of His "still, small voice,'' 
whose faintest whisper can calm all the din 

and turmoil of mere opinion. And what 

are opinions but a result of views, and 
hence limited by spiritual outlook. It is 
well to remember this, for in the matter of 



I20 THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

"religious views" — which I think a strictly 
accurate philosophical expression — new im- 
pressions and ideas come crowding in on 
us, just as they do when we look out over 
some wide land or sea view, and need to 
wait, before we can adjust "near and f ar " 
into their own true places — for so we need 
to wait, before we pronounce decidedly on 
subjects of which even the wisest are slow 
in judging. 

And as we wait, let us remember, " there 
may be absolute and higher truth of which 
what we know is only the shadowed outline; 
we cannot reach it now — but it is there, 
ready for us behind the veil." 

And at best, what can we prove ? Ten- 
nyson's words are so true: 

" For nothing worthy proving can be proven, 

Nor yet disproven: wherefore then be wise, 

And cling to Faith, beyond the forms of Faith ! 

She reels not in the storm of warring words, 

She brightens at the clash of ' Yes ' and ' No/ 

She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst, 

She feels the Sun is hid but for a night, 

She spies the Summer thro' the winter bud, 

She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, 

She hears the lark within the songless egg^ 

She finds the fountain, where they wailed, ' Mirage ! ' " 






THE AGE WE LIVE IN. I2I 

Hence, I bid you hold your mind open 
to truth, even though it may come to you 
at the cost of your pulling down a hoard 
of maxims, and close clinging to the letter 
of the law rather than the spirit — a state of 
mind that I call, for lack of a better term, 
a sort of framing in of your traditional con- 
science. Do not infer from this that I mean 
speculation is truth, or that systems of 
thought are to be received as God's revela- 
tion. But what I want to recognize is, that 
there is danger in a too determined cling- 
ing to the " old ways," as well as danger in 
an undue reaching out after the new. For 
the one is apt, as we grow in years, to de- 
velop into superstition, while the other, 
without prayerful watching, will end in 
scepticism. 

Let us then, dear H , hold fast to the 

" faith once delivered," but let us " add to 
faith, knowledge." And a generous will- 
ingness to welcome what of good has grown 
out of the wide study and enlarged thought 
of the present age. As I write this, I feel 
I need the warning, perchance, more than 
you do, for I am a very conservative by na- 
ture, prone to abjure theories, and I will con- 



I22 THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

fess it has always, and does now seem to me, 
that those who simply and trustfully do the 
present duty, are wont to be clearer-sighted 
in the spiritual life, than those whose vision 
ranges far. For, there is always the risk, 
that in searching for great things, we may 
overlook the present, and the command is 
for day by day living. Nevertheless, the 
world has need for the far seekers, as well 
as the near, and to whichever party we be- 
long, it is well for us to be wide awake to 
the good contained in the other. 

But let us turn from these ponderings, 
which savor of unrest in a certain way, and 
instead of them, listen for a while to the 
whispers of the voice in the soul — and, if 
those whispers lead us round to the same 
thoughts, we need not fear to follow their 
guidance, for it is the Holy Spirit that leads 
by them. 

How still they are, these Spirit whispers, 
and so powerful ! Silent as sunlight, yet 
transmuting the material into the spiritual, 
bidding us penetrate like the warm rays of 
sunshine beyond and beneath the visible. 
That is a real " modern day " thought, do 
you tell me ? Well, if it is, think of the be- 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. I2 ^ 

neath, where there is so much concealed ! 
Think how diamonds lie hidden from sight 
year after year, and gold, deep imbedded 
under fathoms of rock and loam. Think, 
too, of the springs of living waters that are 
locked for centuries silent in fastnesses of 
the hills, and the deep caverns of the earth 
— and all these treasures are waiting for 
some touch, like that of Moses' rod, to set 
them free. 

These thoughts are types, and yet types 
even when Bible-culled are well-nigh empty, 
till they become meaningful because of 
some linking with real life, that serves to 
illuminate their spiritual as well as their 
material side. 

And, the " still, small Voice/' how often 
it guides memory back over a silent stretch 
of years to some such life-like remembrance. 

This very minute it brings to my mind a 
simple "all true" story, that holds in sug- 
gestion a lesson full of the portrayal of 
God's overruling Love revealed by the 
bringing to light one of the "beneath 
things. " And because it points beyond the 
visible, I pass it on to you. 

It leads to a far distant land and a time, 



I2 4 THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

by-gone by many years. Our surroundings 
are all strange, " cannons to right, and can- 
nons to left" of us. The siege of Sebasto- 
pol is at its height. The brave, undaunted 
band of battle-marred soldiers who for long 
have guarded one special point grow less in 
number with every passing hour. Long 
fasting — and the deadlier foe, thirst- — doing 
a more fatal work than cannon-ball and 
bursting shell. And yet, in the hearts of 
those brave men hope died hard — but, thirst 

is cruel, and with it came despair— when 

Hark ! — through the parting air once again 
Russian shell follows shell, once again the 
earth is rent and torn, the crimson tide of 
life-blood flows fast — when — lo !— from the 
clefted sod up-wells a bubbling foun- 
tain ! — water — pure and cool ! And that 
life-spring, set free by an enemy's missile 
of death, never once failed while the siege 
lasted. To scores and scores of thirst- 
parched men it proved an almoner of life 
and refreshment. There is no need for me 
to point the meaning of this story, it tells 
its own lesson, and yet such stories are well 
to recall when one has been dwelling on the 
environment of the present day. For they 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. I2 ^ 

tell us, escape from the trammel of "why 
and wherefore " is found in a firm trust in 
the overruling care of Him who can cause 
water to up-spring in the desert, who can 
say to the wildest storm of doubt, " Be 
still," and there will be "a great calm." 

And now, here we are round again to the 
fact that speculation, the spirit of question- 
ing, like a huge interrogation-point on a 
blank page is the atmosphere of the age we 
live in. We cannot put this truth by — and 
would we if we could ? I think not, for, 
thank God, if the waves that toss this ques- 
tioning age be turbulent and restless, as 
mid-ocean billows, yet hearts and minds have 
grown broader by the very tossing. Faith's 
boundaries have widened, spite the fact 
that sometimes they seem narrowing. We 
have come to know, 

" The love of God is broader 

Than the measure of man's mind, 
And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind." 

We have come to a clearer insight of the 
lines of progress, and see through perspect- 
ive the real advance that has followed the 



I2 5 THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

learning that where the questioning is 
honest, it may yield a richer harvest than 
that which ripens from a persistent clinging 
to "what one has been taught." Robert 
Browning expresses this in words that may 
seem to you somewhat harsh — still, I think 
you will acknowledge they are alive with 
the vigor of a healthy progressive life : 

c< And so I live, you see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject, 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare : happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man, 
Not left in God's contempt apart 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, 
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. 

Thank God, no paradise stands barred 
To entry, and I find it hard 
To be a Christian, as I said." 

If all this involves a time of spiritual up- 
stirring, surely we can rest satisfied that a 
higher order will blossom out of it, just as 
the earth that is most stirred by plow and 
furrow, in the end brings forth the fullest 
fruitage. 

As to the matter of unsettled creeds, if 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. I2 y 

we remember creeds, even the very best of 
them, are of man's making, how many a 
note of discord would be quieted, because 
louder than them all, sounds the Voice of 
Him, who summed up in so brief a space 
the first and great foundation principle of 
Christian life — love — love to God, and love 
to man. 

Love ! — it touches the key-note of a creed I 
pray God you and I may in very truth be 
able to preface with an " I believe." 

Love ! — ah, if that one word in all its ful- 
ness could stand as the capital letter of all 
creeds, how the spirit of opposition would 
die out for want of nourishment, the bitter- 
ness of discussion grow warm and fragrant 
with the incense that haloes Christ's " Love " 
command; for when love is the root, little 
does it matter whether the flower of worship 
be a blossom of liturgy, or of untrammeled 
speech. 

And — what do disputes and differences of 
opinion, lengthy discussions, and clashing 
arguments as to that most vexed and mooted 
question, the Hereafter, amount to, before 
the greater question, Is thy heart right be- 
fore God ? 



I2 8 THE A GE WE LIVE IN. 

If we can answer that, standing in the 
full illumining of His promise, " Unto the 
upright there ariseth light," we need feel no 
fear of this questioning, restless age, for 
then our anchor is Faith. We can calm our- 
selves in the thought of the strong, steady- 
Hand at the wheel, and holding that Hand, 
oh, how surely we know the waves wreck- 
ing about us never for one moment mean 
the parting of the strong planks of the Life- 
Boat in which we sail. For above the clash 
and the roar of howling winds and break- 
ing waves, loud and clear as the song of a 
lark, rings out the Lighthouse bell — " Port 
is near." " The Haven is sure." " Hold 
fast, all is well." 

Yes, very well ; for even now, 

" The lights are gleaming from the distant shore, 
Where no billows threaten, where no tempests roar." 

Does the glimmer of these lights make 
you long to go ? 

Yes — I know many a time it is hard 

not to pray, 

" Lord, loose the cable, let me go — " 
But 

" Hark the solemn answer, 
Hark the promise sure, 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. T2 g 

Blessed are the servants who to the end endure ! 

Yet a little longer, hope and tarry on, 

Yet a little longer, weak and weary one — 

More to perfect patience, to grow in faith and love, 

More my strength and wisdom, and faithfulness to 

prove, 
Then the sailing orders the captain shall bestow — 
Loose the cable, let thee go." 

I do not feel satisfied, dear H , to 

leave this meditation without turning again 
for a moment to the thought that en- 
vironment counts for much, hence we must 
meet the questions of this age we live in, 
for they are stirring around us like snow- 
flakes falling thick and fast on a De- 
cember storm day. Then, too, I so want 
you to feel the strength, the quietness, and 
confidence there is in meeting them with a 
firm trust in the great "I Am." Out of this 
trust comes a power that enables the mind 
to discriminate between doubt and specula- 
tion, as the eager search of an earnest soul 
after light, and doubt and speculation as a 
mere indulgence of spiritual self-conceit, 
for there is a vast difference in the two. 

I recall a lesson of wisdom on -this very 
point, and the importance of being just in 
the reception of what may be to us new 

9 



j^ Q THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

thoughts. It was taught a company of la- 
dies by one of God's dear saints, who went 
from earth to Heaven not many months 
ago. 

Dispute ran high; the verdict pronounced 
on the young minister under discussion, and 
who had recently been called to fill a cen- 
tury and century-old gospel pulpit, was 
"too progressive, ,, "too advanced/' 

Silently my old friend had listened, while 
one of those shrewd, yet kindly smiles that 
seem to belong to a fast passing generation, 
lit up her countenance. When at last she 
spoke, it was very quietly, and at first I 
thought her words far away from the sub- 
ject. 

"In my young days," thus she began, 
"voyagers across the wide Atlantic took 
passage in some staunch, white-winged 
sailing craft, and slow was the progress, 
requiring many a tack to eastward and to 
westward to catch every breath of the fa- 
voring wind." Just here she paused be- 
fore adding : " But nowadays things are 
changed. Swift as a bird goes through the 
air, the steam-fed vessel spans the ocean 
miles. A voyage that once took weeks to 



THE AGE WE LIVE IN. ^i 

accomplish, now fills a time brief as from 
one Sabbath to the next." 

Then came a pause again, while the smile 
on her face became more tender, as after a 
minute she continued : " And, somehow — I 
am thinking, though the old ways are good 
(she was too loyal to admit a past tense), the 
old ways are dear, yet if I were to start to- 
morrow for a land beyond the sea, you 
would not bid me set sail in some old-time 
' ship of the line/ No, you would send me 
forth with a ' God-speed ' in the very swiftest 
and the surest of the modern-built vessels 
that ply from shore to shore. — And — I am 
thinking " — unconsciously she seemed to re- 
peat the words — u we should be as open- 
minded in acknowledging the good progress 
made in the spiritual world, where religious 
thought is leader, as we are to acknowledge 
the progress made in the material." And 
there was not one of all that company who 
said " nay " to my old friend's words. 

And now by way of farewell to this subject, 

dear H , I will let Canon Liddon speak to 

you again, for I much like the way by which 
he tells : " If man's religious wants are to 
be answered, his creed must speak, not 



!^ 2 THE AGE WE LIVE IN. 

merely to his intelligence, but to his heart 
and will. He cannot really rest upon the 
most unimpeachable abstractions. He needs 
something warmer than the truest philoso- 
phy. He yearns to come in contact with a 
heart: and no religion, therefore, can really 
satisfy him which does not at least lead 
him to know and love a person. An unseen 
Friend, who will purify, and teach, and 
check, and lead, and sustain him: — that is 
his great necessity. And this want, this 
last but deepest want of man's religious 
life, Christianity has satisfied. As human- 
ity, ' sitting in darkness and in the shadow 
of death/ pleads with the Power whom it 
feels, but cannot see — ' Show Thou me the 
way that I should walk in, for I lift up my 
soul unto Thee.' Lo ! the heavens drop 
down from above, and the skies pour forth 
righteousness. And One fairer than the 
children of men presents Himself to all the 
centuries and centuries of the world with 
the gracious bidding: 'Come unto Me, all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest' only come." 



WILDERNESS DAYS. 



41 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wil- 
derness to be tempted of the devil." 

Matt. iv. i. 

" O Soul of Jesus .... 
Thy Spirit weighs the sins of man ... . 
And Thou hast struggled with it, Lord ! . . . . 
By the pains of Thy pure love 
Grant me the gift of holy fear .... 
Even when tempted, make me see." 

Faber. 



ii 



VIII. 

WILDERNESS DAYS. 

WILL bring you into the wilder- 
ness/' 
How like a special invitation that sounds. 



i 



a special assurance of our Lord's own lead- 
ing: "/ will bring you" — but, ah! dear 

H , think where it leads. 

And — whether we will go or not is not 
asked — no, the words are, " will bring." 
Temptation — for that is what this wilder- 
ness typifies for us — is something w T e must 
all meet; the only thing about it that is 
under our control is the yielding or resist- 
ing, and that involves conflict, for it is a 
struggle between the evil and the good 
which are implanted in every heart for the 
development of character. And, that we 
may have courage for this conflict, the com- 
panionship of our Saviour in times of trial 
is repeatedly promised. We are even told: 

(i35) 



136 



WILDERNESS DAYS. 



" He was in all points tempted like as we 
are." But, ah! the difference! — He was 
"without sin" — while as for us! — who can 
number their sins ? — Not either you or 
I. To return to the comfort and strength 
of Christ's knowing all about temptation — 
except the yielding to it — have you ever 
followed this thought of the two-foldness 
that runs through Christian life ? — making 
it a condition of being " alone, yet not 
alone." 

It shines with so bright a light on the 
complex truth that the Divine Helper is 
working with us, and yet, while our choosing 
good is the work of God, it is at the same 
time a work only accomplished through our 
own free determinate willingness to choose 
the good. This working of God and man 
together, stands out so clearly defined in 
the history of wilderness days, for truly 
temptations seem one of the plainest ways 
of revealing it, one of the most comforting 
too; for since our Lord was led into the 
wilderness, and trod every step of the way 
before us, if we seek His strength, the 
" strength made perfect in weakness/' after 
the trial-time we, you and I, may " come up 



WILDERNESS DAYS. 



137 



from the wilderness leaning on our Be- 
loved. " Listen to His invitation : 

" Lean on me ! unchanging love 

Shall shield thee, in my warm embrace. 
Lift up thy thoughts, thy hope's above, 

No frowns are on thy Saviour's face. 
Art thou distressed with inward guilt 

When secret sins rise up to view ? 
Forget not then, whose blood was spilt 

To cleanse, to sanctify, renew." 

Lean hard, my child, dismiss thy fear, 
I will uphold." 

Can you sing from your heart the last 
verses of this simple hymn — 

" Jesus, my Lord ! I know Thy Voice, 
On Thee with confidence I lean, 
In Life, in death, my only choice, 

All hope, all wealth, in Thee are seen. 

" Here will I lean, nor doubt Thy love, 
Or power to hold me safely up — 
With heart and hope still fixed above, 
Humbly I'll drink Thy mingled cup." 

Ah ! if you can truly sing them, then, verily, 
the words, "come up, leaning on our Be- 
loved," belong to you. " Come up " ! the 



!38 WILDERNESS DAYS. 

very words proclaim advance — something is 
gained by the wilderness sojourn. The is- 
sue of temptation is upward toward victory. 
For Christ has made it possible for us to 
meet temptation with the hope of conquer- 
ing. " We Christians can dare to face it, for 
He has brought us both a pardon and an 
antidote. His cross and passion are a 

revelation as well as a cure When 

dying He showed us what sin is 

Standing beneath the Cross, we can never 
deem moral evil less or other than the great- 
est, if it be not rather the only evil. Kneel- 
ing before the Crucified, be our sense of 
guilt what it may, we can never despair, 
since the complete revelation of the malig- 
nity of sin is also and simultaneously a reve- 
lation of the Love that knows no bounds." 

"It is these concrete truths, and no ab- 
stract considerations, which really keep alive 
in the Christian's heart an abhorrence and 
dread of moral evil. With that evil, even 
when all has been pardoned, every Christian 
life is, from first to last, in varying degrees 
a struggle. There are great conflicts, and 
there are periods of comparative repose ; 
there are days of failure, as well as days of 



WILDERNESS DAYS. j^g 

victory ; there are quickenings of buoyant 
thankful hope, and there are hours of dis- 
couragement which is only not despair. 
But two things a genuine Christian never 
does : he never makes light of any known 
sin, and he never admits it to be invincible. 
While he constantly endeavors, by the sanc- 
tification of his desires, by entwining his 
affections more and more around the Source 
of goodness, to destroy sin in the bud, or 
rather in its root and principle, he is never 
off his guard ; never surprised at new proof 
of his natural weakness ; never disposed to 
underrate either his dangers or his strength. 
He knows that now, as eighteen centuries 
ago, he wrestles not against flesh and blood, 
but against principalities and powers that 
bear him no good-will : he knows that as at 
the first, so now, ' if any man sin we have 
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ 
the Righteous, and He is the propitiation 
for our sins/ And thus, in his inmost life, 
he is at once anxious and hopeful : confi- 
dent, yet without presumption ; alive to all 
that is at stake day by day, hour by hour : 
yet stayed upon the thought, nay, upon the 
felt presence of a Love which has not really 



I4 WILDERNESS DAYS. 

left him to himself. And at last, when it 
seems best to that Eternal Love, the day of 
struggle draws to its close, and the towers 
of the Everlasting City come into view : the 
city within whose precincts intellectual 
error cannot penetrate, and moral failure 
is unknown." — "Thanks be to God who 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

A long extract, dear H , w T hich I cull 

from the volume, quoted often before — 
Canon Liddon's "Elements of Religion " — 
but if you read it carefully, I think you will 
find it none too long, for it will prove a help- 
ful entrance to thoughts on the peculiar temp- 
tations that belong to our wilderness days. 
But, before we ponder them, let us pause 
to note the lesson of Israel's wilderness 
mercies and wilderness wanderings, with an 
application to ourselves, for since the Old 
Testament as well as the New is for instruc- 
tion, they must hold lessons for us. 

And the wilderness through which God's 
chosen people were brought, that they 
might "go up to the good land and take 
possession of it," surely is a very striking 
emblem of our spiritual experience, for re- 



WILDERNESS DAYS. I4I 

member we are the Lord's spiritual Israel, 
and the wilderness stands as a type of the 
world through which we must journey, not 
escaping its temptations, but overcoming 
them, if we are to enter "the good land of 
promise," the Canaan which we can only 
reach as we pass over Jordan ! 

Passing over Jordan ! The meaning held 
in that passing, how deep it goes, reaching 
down to the very root of self-love and self- 
will. For, though the metaphors are differ- 
ent, the underlying truth — death to self — 
is the same as that to which St. Paul re- 
ferred when he said, "I die daily." 

The death of self-will — no wonder we 
come to it by the way of the wilderness, for 
it dies hard. 

No wonder the waters of the typical Jor- 
dan are cold and dark: no wonder we dread 
the entering into life through death, and 
yet we must do it if we are to be " made con- 
formable to His death." But it is not death 
of which we are to think — no, it is life — for 
that is what our Lord imparts to us when 
we have passed over Jordan. Yes, life — for 
the promise is, not only that we shall abide 
"in Him," but that He "abides in us." 



I4 2 WILDERNESS DAYS. 

Remember, out of this abiding, comes 
the soul's communing with God, which re- 
veals the secret of Divine wisdom. Think — 
"out of the abiding of the Son with the 
Father flows the wealth of the Word's high 
knowledge. He knows — because He abides 
in the bosom of the Father. This is the 
law of intellectual life in its highest con- 
ceivable expression, in the Word, who is 
the Thought and Reason of God Himself: 
this law, then, regulates the exercise of 
reason from end to end of its domains: 
in this lies the secret of its force, the condi- 
tion of its success: and we, on our lower 
level, we, whose reason works in the image 
of the Word, in whose light alone we see 
light, can win our intellectual way only 
through conformity to the primal condi- 
tions under which the Word of God moves 
forward to His victorious apprehensions. 
We can only understand that in which we 
abide, with which we have intimate union, 

to which we are ourselves conformed 

The closer our contact, the surer grows our 
knowledge: and only out of the growing 
pressure of familiar intercourse can our 
reason gain ever-quickening activity, ever- 



WILDERNESS DAYS. ^ 

increasing assurance Its instinctive 

sympathies, its sense of security, its touches 
of persuasiveness, its effective presence, all 
vary infinitely, according to the character 
of its abiding habits, according to the range 

of its experiences." Ah ! if we can grasp 

what this abiding means, if we can but 
touch even the hem of this truth, with the 
touch of taith, we have indeed come near 
to the border of the "good land." And, by 
the power of His life — " Christ in us " — we 
can thus approach, we can know, at last we 
will overcome, though now, fight we must. 
We can rest assured also, that no upward 
flight of holiness is too far a reach for us to 
seek : no victory over temptation too hard 
for us to attain, since with Christ for our 
Risen and Living Lord, " all things have be- 
come possible." Hence, if we do not over- 
come, it is not because His power fails, but 
because we hold back from full consecration 
of our all to Him. The consecration which 
He bids us seek and find when He calls us, 
saying : " I will bring you into the wilder- 
ness, and I will plead with you face to face." 
Do you ask — Why call that a wilderness, 
which leads to Christ's converse with the 



I44 WILDERNESS DAYS. 

soul intimate as the " pleading face to 
face " ? 

If you will recall His Gospel words, 
" Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest," I 
think you will straightway see one reason. 
For they bear the same interpretation as 
this Old Testament invitation. And they 
bring out very plainly that the rest prom- 
ised even when the soul is called near to 
Christ, is of a relative kind, for it springs 
from the fact, that His yoke is easy, and 
yet it is a burden — is a yoke only made easy 
by His sympathy and love; it brings out 
the fact, too, that our rest here is in com- 
parison with earth's unrest, and that in 
bearing His yoke, even though He is with 
us, helping us bear it, we still, like the 
children of Israel, find there is no swift 
speeding across the desert to the "rest and 
inheritance," for our way there is like the 
path they trod, "a long way, round about." 

Do you catch my idea ? It is, that in the 
Gospel the call, " Come unto me .... I 
will give you Rest," is distinct from the fol- 
lowing verses: the one, having to do with 
the " Hereafter," the others with now; the 



WILDERNESS DAYS. j 4 g 

order being reversed from the Old Testa- 
ment record, where first we encounter the 
thought of the wilderness, and afterward 
are granted the glimpse of the " promised 
land." 

" Come unto Me." This is a call bidding us 
" leave the burden of mortal life, the sorrow 
of a sin-laden world, the weakness and the 
faulty character, the imperfect love of frail 
mortality ; leave it all, and come — where ? 
Not only to Heaven, not to your crown only, 
but to Me ! and you shall find Rest, and 
that Rest shall be Heaven." We cannot, do 
not gain it here on earth, for the next verse 
tells us of the yoke and the burden, both 
involving continuance of labor and endur- 
ance, even though both are lightened by 
His Presence, and because of that Presence, 
while the discipline of life and temptation 
is a wilderness, " the desert is made to 
bloom," for " the beloved of the Lord shall 
dwell in safety by Him : and the Lord shall 
cover him all the day long." 

If you spend an hour on the seashore you 

will understand this seeming contradiction 

of rest and unrest, for then you will see 

how, even amid the surging of the breaking 

10 



146 WILDERNESS DAYS. 

waves, there is still a peaceful under-rip- 
pling current. Yes, dear, wonderful as it 
seems, if Christ's Presence be recognized by 
us, this under-ripple of peace is always ours, 
however the upper waves may dash and 
roar. — But — the abiding calm, unbroken by 
either ripple or wave, that, in its complete- 
ness we can only know when at last we are 
safe Home, at anchor, within the Harbor of 
Heaven. 

I used the word crown, in referring to the 
Saviour's call to the soul, and it leads me to 
note in passing that there is danger of mis- 
reading the verse : " Be thou faithful unto 
death, and I will give thee a crown of life." 
For, if we merely see in the words the 
promise of a crown if we are faithful until 
death, they become discouraging, filling the 
heart with forebodings of failure, and the 
mind with thoughts of self, in place of the 
peaceful assurance of hope, that is a sure 
outcome of trust in Christ ; hence I do not 
think it w T as thus our Lord meant them, but 
rather as test words, asking, would our faith- 
fulness be steadfast, and willing to endure 
suffering, even agony keen as death, for His 
sake ? If we would, then they are His 



WILDERNESS DAYS. I47 

pledge of the blessed Hereafter which will 
be our crown of Life. 

This is one of the many places where we 
walk in darkness if our faith only partially 
grasps the truth, that we only are complete 
in and by Him. But all is light if we de- 
pend on Christ for constant guidance, for 
then we do not try to bear alone the burden 
of being faithful, but we share it with Him, 
our Lord, who saves us not only from sin, 
but from its bondage. 

The experiences I mention now may seem 
strange to you, for it is something of a con- 
tradiction, revealing that what is our great- 
est comfort may yet be our greatest humili- 
ation. 

It is that sometimes as we travel through 
this wilderness life, we become disheartened 
from the very fact of Christ's pleading with 
us " face to face." For it brings Him so near 
us, we see brought out in clearly-defined 
contrast our own unlikeness to the Di- 
vine Pattern. When it thus happens, re- 
member, this very sight of the All-Perfect 
and our all imperfection is one of the wil- 
derness ways, " to humble us, and to prove 
us "; for it shows what He is, and what we 



148 



WILDERNESS DAYS. 



are, making our after conduct a test of 
whether we really are in profound earnest 
in wishing to be like Him. 

But it is humbling, I repeat, dust hum- 
bling, this finding how dull and slow we are 
in responding to His example, and so is our 
wandering from Him. And yet, how we do 
wander, sometimes so far that where the 
light about us has been a clear shining, 
suddenly we find all dim, while a mist, 
caused by our waywardness and straying, 
gathers in thick gloom, like vapor up-rising 
from some sickly morass. And we cannot 
see our Lord at all: nevertheless He is near. 

But the wanderer must pay the penalty of 
straying, and before we find our way back 
to the safe " narrow path," we may have to 
seek and seek, even till weary and footsore, 
the sun beating on us by day, the chill damp 
of night enfolding us with " a darkness that 
can be felt" — and then — for our humbling 
still — we find Him; find He has never left 
us — but we were the ones who turned from 
Him. 

There are other times, when " our Lord 
hides His face," not because of any fault of 
ours, but for the perfecting of our faith, and 



WILDERNESS DAYS. I4 o 

that we may be fitted by His dealings for 
the object of them, the final receiving us 
"into glory." "Soldier and Servant" — it 
is a good motto for us wilderness-pilgrims, 
for we are called to fight the fight of faith, 
as well as to "walk in love, serving the 
Lord." And faith does oftentimes demand 
stern conflict, " the soul cannot satisfy itself 
with itself; it seeks some higher service. . . . 
And remember, faith will perish if we do 
not take care of it." It is not something 
we can plant in the soul, and then leave to 
grow. No, it needs the daily renewal of 
self-surrender, and daily seeking after the 
high service and devoted obedience of the 
children of God. If this is your desire, then 
listen to, and follow the " pleading " of " the 
sweet, low Voice that calls us out of our- 
selves, out of our vanities, out of our own 
ease, up to the higher obedience, up to the 
humility of sonship, up to the service of 
faith: that so nourishing and cherishing all 
the instincts that faith sets working within 
us, our faith may slowly perfect itself into 
that love of God which loves Him with all 
its mind, and all its heart, and all its soul, 
and all its strength." 



i5<> 



WILDERNESS DAYS. 



And now, dear H , you ask me to tell 

of the special " wilderness " you may be 
called to walk, living as you do a home and 
love-guarded life. It will doubtless be a 
wilderness leading into the realm of inter- 
nal and spiritual temptations, rather than 
by the way of external and material. And 
yet, in meeting temptations, the same com- 
mands apply to both, though looking at 
them from a mere surface glance, it does 
not seem so. I recall once reading an illus- 
tration of this, which will serve to suggest 
the thought, though I cannot give it in the 
exact words used. The idea was in follow- 
ing the subtle working of temptation in its 
mental influence, take but the eighth com- 
mandment as an example, which holds good 
for a hundred other allurements : " Thou 
shalt not steal." Straightway you will say: 
" No need for me to pray to be delivered 
from that temptation, for never, in all my 
life, did I feel an impulse toward dishonesty." 

But look a little deeper, and tell me, have 
you never been tempted to desire to seem 
a little better, a little truer, a little more 
charitable, a little more accomplished than 
you really are ? Have you never given the 



WILDERNESS DAYS. T c T 

impression of possessions or position a little 
beyond the honest truth ? And — is not the 
being willing to seem anything which you 
are not truly, disobeying the command, 
"Thou shalt not steal"? — For, are you not 
trying to steal the good opinion of others, 
by giving them an impression of worth 
where it does not exist ? 

Alas, how often we do steal in one, if not 
all of these ways — and others, akin to them — • 
without giving hardly a thought to the " mor- 
al falseness " involved — sometimes even smil- 
ing at our own rare skill in putting what the 
world calls the "best foot foremost." 

Another of these subtle ways by w T hich we 
are often tried is, we resist temptation be- 
cause to yield would lower us in the esti- 
mation of others, not because of the right 
and wrong in question, and hence we gain 
nothing in a moral sense by our refusal; in 
fact, we lose in truth of character every 
time we thus conquer. For, while we may 
gain a certain strength toward resisting the 
evil when next it assails us, it is a mere sur- 
face gain, for "only as we refuse to yield 
because consent is sin in God's sight, do we 
really gain in spiritual strength, and power 



1 ^ 2 WILDERNESS DAYS. 

to close bar the door of our souls against 
future temptations/' 

Then, too, we are so wont to forget, that 
what we are to seek by the resisting of 
temptation is not deliverance from the pen- 
alty of wrong-doing, but from the heart- 
sinfulness, which leads us to desire to sin, 
making it even dear to us. How all this 
gives a profound emphasis to the truth, 
"the heart is deceitful." 

Verily, victory over these subtle tempta- 
tions, which, like all spiritual things, are dif- 
ficult to grasp and hold, demands a keen in- 
tellectual effort, as well as prayerful seeking 
of Divine Help; this you will straightway 
see if you follow but the growth of one 
yielding. For it begins by a mental pro- 
cess, first the wish — and then the rounded 
thought — that reacts on the wish, pressing 
it forward, till desire gains mastery — and 
at last becomes a reality. Hence, to gain 
control over our wishes, is the way to gain 
control over thoughts, and when we have 
conquered so far as to hold sway over 
thoughts, we are well on toward that " great 
city, the Holy Jerusalem," of which it is 
written, "there shall in no wise enter into 



WILDERNESS DAYS. 



153 



it anything that defileth .... or maketh 
a lie, but they which are written in the 
Lamb's Book of Life." 

Truth, honesty of soul — yes, it leads by a 
path all upward, and if we tread its heights, 
even here on earth, we can look on and over 
into " the good land of promise." 

" O blest the land, the city blest, 
Where Christ the Ruler is confest! 

Fling wide the portals of your heart, 
Make it a temple set apart, 
From earthly use for Heaven's employ, 
Adorn'd with prayer, and love, and joy: 
So shall your Sovereign enter in, 
And new and nobler life begin. 

" Redeemer, come! I open wide 
My heart to Thee : here, Lord, abide! 
Let me Thy inner presence feel, 
Thy grace and love in me reveal, 
Thy Holy Spirit guide me on 
Until my glorious goal be won! " 

But — before we reach that glad, blessed 
goal there are other wildernesses for us to 
encounter beside those typified by tempta- 
tion — and those "other deserts" are so 

many, we will ponder them, dear H , in 

a separate Meditation. 



DESERT PLACES. 



Remember, 

" Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is 
written, He gave them bread from Heaven to eat." 

John vi. 31. 

And, 

" Thus saith the Lord, I will make a way in the wil- 
derness, and rivers in the desert. " 

Is. iv\ 3. 

And the Christ. He took them, His own chosen 
disciples — " into a desert place." 

Luke ix. 10. 



IX. 

DESERT PLACES, 

YESTERDAY we pondered passing 
through the wilderness as a type of 
the soul's encounter with temptations in its 
journey through this world. 

To-day, our thoughts lead to other ex- 
periences, that in their teaching of faith 
and patience, may well be called " desert 
places/' and yet by knowing them, the heart 
is made ready for entrance at last into the 
King's own country — the dear Jerusalem 
the golden. 

I need hardly tell you these deserts are 
varied as the clouds that speed between us 
and the blue sky, on an April day, when 
clouds above are well-nigh as many as the 
numberless waking flower-buds below, that 
spring up an hundred to a sod. For suffer- 
ing is the appointed lot of all. And suffer- 
ing ! Who can count the ways by which 

(157) 



!ij8 DESERT PLACES. 

it comes? Since they are so multitudin- 
ous, only the trials that stand out in bold- 
est relief, will we pause to note. Chief 
among them is poverty — for when one must 
work whether the head be aching, or the 
heart breaking, it makes of labor a " desert 
place/' 

Ask the sons and daughters of toil, and 
they can tell you all about it. While as for 
sickness — truly it is a discipline that 
leads " apart into the desert.'' But, thank 
God, the desert of sickness is one of the 
places where we may feel most sure the 
Christ will come, filling its gloom with His 
Presence. The record of His life on earth 
gives us this assurance, for think of His 
tender sympathy for all bodily suffering. 
And surely the Lord Christ is no less ten- 
der and mindful than the Man Christ ! 
Think how " they brought unto Him many 
that were sick ": how we are told, not once, 
but again and again, " He was moved with 
compassion." And His compassion, what 
an example it is for us to follow, going as 
it did deeper than mere sympathy — precious 
as that is — for it was blended with the act- 
ive mercy of relieving, — "the blind re- 



DESERT PLACES. I c ( ) 

ceived their sight, and the lame walked, the 
lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard. " 

From sickness our thoughts naturally 
pass on to the desert of parting. " One 
taken, the other left." Ah ! that means a 
wilderness indeed ; only they who have trod 
its desolate way know the barrenness of 
this " desert place." 

And there is the desert of " living sor- 
rows," the over-casting of a sun-bright 
sky, the turning of a flower-strewn path 
into the arid sand of the desert, because one 
we love has fallen from the ways of right 
to wrong, from honor to dishonor. Added 
to these trials are the numberless and the 
nameless anxieties and perplexities that be- 
long to daily life. Conscience has dark 
places too, and remorse is a desert. And 
there are also the spiritual and mental des- 
erts that follow swiftly on undue or self- 
conceited search into the u hidden things of 
God." But of them all the Lord saith, " I 
will make a way in the wilderness, and riv- 
ers in the desert." And yet, before He 
does this, the years of discipline my be long 
as the typical " forty " ! For from His 
Word we learn that trial is meant to be 



!6o DESERT PLACES. 

trial, and that it must accomplish its full 
work. Christ said, " I am the true vine, 
and my Father is the husbandman : every 
branch in me that beareth not fruit He 
taketh away, and every branch that beareth 
fruit, He purgeth it that it may bring forth 
more fruit/' 

Remember it is not enough to be a 
branch, we must also " bear fruit/' And 
then, " the Lord purgeth " — for the sake of 
the " more fruit/' Hence we will have to 
cross and re-cross the deserts appointed for 
our discipline and growth in grace as long 
as we stay in this world. For there is no 
passing beyond tears, no passing beyond the 
need for weeping, till we are called There, 
where " God shall wipe away all tears/' 

Till then poverty will be hard in detail, 
sickness will mean weariness and pain, the 
parting from our dearest will be agony, the 
sin of those we love will be cruel as the 
wound of sharpest sword-blade. And yet, 
spite all this, God has a special comfort, 
as well as a special lesson linked with each 
trial, and He will reveal them to us when 
our hearts are ready for lesson and consola- 
tion. 



DESERT PLACES. ^i 

Ah! if we only listen for His teaching in 
our keenest griefs, as well as in lesser trials, 
we will find they are in very truth " bless- 
ings in disguise." For, while the Lord 
saith, "I will cause you to pass under the 
Rod," a mercy is joined to that passing by a 
tie close as one brief connecting "and" "I 
will bring you into the bond of the cove- 
nant." 

This being so, dear H , our object is 

to seek how we may enter into this covenant 
bond though treading the preparatory des- 
erts that help to perfect the soul for a Higher 
life. Let us take our place then as children 
under the schoolmaster law first, and then 
faith, for Sl the law is our schoolmaster to 
bring us unto Christ that we may be justified 
by faith." But, remember, " after that faith 
has come, w T e are no longer under a school- 
master." What a blessed tender school it 
is by which we of this " new dispensation " 
are trained for the spiritual life. Since the 
coming of Christ and liberty, it stands out 
as something all unlike the bondage and 
rule of the old Mosaic law, as manhood is 
unlike infancy. Still, in a certain sense, 
these days are school days, but the order 
ii 



T 6 2 DESERT PLACES. 

is reversed — law is still teacher, but Christ is 
the Higher Master, and in His school " Love 
is Law — Law is Love." The difference turns 
for explanation to the continuous spiritual 
growth that has been going on ever since 
the world began. The history of a newly 
settled country will serve to straightway 
make my meaning plain. " In the early days 
law needed to be rigidly enforced, until 
habits and local customs had been founded ; 
but when the claims of law had become 
firmly established, rule in many of its 
forms can safely be relaxed/' just as in our 
hearts there is a time when we are governed 
by law. " I will obey, because I must," and 
the blessed aftertime when we act from the 
more noble principle of love and faith, which, 
while obedient to law, has passed beyond 
the need of its enforcement, though not be- 
yond the need of the discipline of love. 

And now let us strive to sum up a few of 
the lessons law and love teach. 

You will remember in mentioning trials 
on the foregone page, poverty was the first 
I noted — and so we will first seek its lesson. 

Canon Farrar writes : " Poverty, self- 
denial, the bearing of the yoke in youth, are 



DESERT PLACES. ^ 

the highest forms of discipline, for a pure 
and godly manhood. " And he adds, " Hum- 
ble poverty is true wealth. ,, This exalts the 
being poor, but what does it teach ? 

In reply, let us turn again to Farrar ; he 
says : " You have but little of this world's 
goods — oh, be faithful with that little, and 
you will find it more than much." Faith- 
fulness, then, is one lesson we are to learn, 
and Farrar also tells us — " A poverty which 
scorns luxury, which can dispense with su- 
perfluities, which can find life purest and 
strongest when it is disciplined under the 
beneficent laws of ' high thinking and plain 
living ' is wealthier in every element of hap- 
piness than 

" ' Forty seas, though all their shores were pearl, 
Their waters crystal, and their rocks pure gold.' ' 

Another lesson obedience to law teaches is 
that, " whenever the labors of life are fulfilled 
in the spirit of striving against misrule, and 
doing whatever we have to do honorably 
and perfectly, however lowly the task, they 
invariably bring happiness.'' For, "as- 
cending from the lowest to highest things, 
every scale of human industry worthily 



^4 DESERT PLACES. 

followed gives peace." — "Ask the laborer 
in the field, or at the forge, or in the mine ; 
ask the patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or 
the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in 
bronze or in marble, and none of them 
who are true workmen will ever tell you 
that they have found the law of heaven an 
unkind one — that ' in the sweat of their 
brow they should eat bread until they re- 
turn to the ground/ nor that they ever 
found it an unrewarded obedience, if in- 
deed it was rendered faithfully to the com- 
mand, ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
do it with thy might.' " This is Ruskin's 
tribute to the blessing that is in even the 
poverty which enforces manual labor, and 
surely it proves while certain conditions will 
always make enforced daily toil a deserc, 
yet it can become a wilderness wherein the 
" wayfaring man shall find an highway, and 
parched ground become a pool, and the 
thirsty land springs of water," if the laborer 
treads its path in obedience to the principle 
of doing with his might, rendering faithful 
hand and heart service. 

These illustrations have all been taught 
by law. When we think of all love holds, 



DESERT PLACES. jfi^ 

in promise of blessing and true riches for 
those who walk the desert of this world's 
poverty, we find enumeration save for a 

few beatitudes quite beyond our limits. 

14 Blessed are the poor." That is our Sav- 
iour's halo for poverty — blessed 7 " Let 

the poor glory in the beatitude of poverty, 
it is a gift of God." And for its peculiar 
trials, Christ's own tender solicitude pro- 
vided. For, in anticipation of the sense of 
"aloneness," that often makes the hardest 
part of the trial of small means, He made 
Himself the companion of those who had 
but little of this world's wealth, and who 
are among its toilers. " Is not this the 
Carpenter? We may indeed be thankful 
that the word remains, for it is full of mean- 
ing, and has exercised a very noble and 
blessed influence over the fortunes of mill- 
ions. It has tended to ennoble and sanctify 
the estate of poverty, to ennoble the duty of 
labor." And for the sake of doing this 
"Jesus Christ voluntarily chose the low 
estate of poverty, not indeed an absorbing, 
degrading, grinding poverty, which is al- 
ways rare, and almost always remediable, 
but the commonest lot of honest poverty, 



!66 DESERT PLACES. 

which though it necessitates self-denial can 
provide with care for all the necessaries of 
a simple life." 

How love shines through all this— not 
the half-way love we mortals give, but love 
that manifests itself in the closeness of fel- 
lowship, sharing the 3^oke of poverty, bear- 
ing the burden of labor. 

As for sickness — its law-taught lessons 
are so like an open page, I hardly need to 
sum them up, and yet we must not lose sight 
of these lessons, for when we have learned 
them, the desert of sickness, "that wilder- 
ness and solitary place shall be glad." 

They are lessons that touch different 
notes of discipline ; but the chief among 
them is, the learning submission in the ac- 
ceptance of illness, in obedience to God's 
will. And then come like a troop of 
armed foes the special trials and tempta- 
tions of illness. But, oh, the tenderness of 
this — love comes hand-in-hand with every 
trial and temptation, and we feel this love, 
when we cannot understand. For, " if we 
ponder on the incomprehensible nature of 
pain, mental and bodily, of its invisibleness, 
its vividness, its exceeding sharpness, and 



DESERT PLACES. 



167 



penetrating omnipresence in our whole 
being, of its inevitable origin, and the in- 
dissoluble link which binds it to sin : and 
lastly, its mysterious relation to the pas- 
sion and perfection of our Lord, we shall 
see reason to believe, that a power so near 
and awful has many energies, and fulfils 
many designs in God's kingdom secret 
from us." 

As for the many different kinds of pain 
that come through illness, one remedy holds 
good, and that is, bear them as bravely as 
you can — not being too eager to seek relief, 
for that is wont to lead to restlessness. 

Bear as silently as possible too, and pa- 
tiently, for that is always possible — and 
strive to remember — for this will be your 
greatest help — you are called to endure this 
physical trial, " as unto the Lord." And 
the burden does not rest on you alone, for 
He Himself " bore our sicknesses." " He, the 
Son of God, became what we are — God is 

with us in our flesh He has that in 

His essential Godhead which need not be 
ashamed to call us brethren : as Love in a 
higher sense than we, He yet can embrace 
in His higher Sonship that lower sonship 



j68 desert places. 

which is ours. He is made our Brother, 
our Brother-Man. All that is brotherly in 
nature — far more, all that is brotherly in 
man : all that reaches out hands to greet 
and welcome us, all sympathy that grows 
up, ail encouragement that flows, all help 
that springs to meet our needs : all tender- 
ness, all gentleness, all kindliness, all com- 
fort, that soothes our misery : all pity, all 
compassion, all closeness of heart, all friend- 
ship, all love : all that comes to sweeten, to 
relieve, to support, to fortify : all courage to 
share, all unselfishness, all self-sacrifice, all 
this large brotherliness of man to man, is 
the work of the Son : all this is His prompt- 
ing, His ministry, who for our sakes, since 
the children partake of flesh and blood, 
Himself partook of the same : He, the true 
Brother, Himself, in His own Person, came 
down and stood by our side, and shared all 
our ills, bore all our sicknesses, was bruised, 
was chastised : among us He came in our 
saddest need, and drank of our bitterest 
cup, and was baptized with our secret bap- 
tism that He might bring nigh to us all 
help, all comfort." — Oh, ponder it, dear 
H , " He came, laying His hand upon 



DESERT PLACES. jftg 

our head in sickness, His fingers upon our 
eyes, sighing out His soul upon us, breath- 
ing His peace into us, touching us, taking 
us by the hand as we sink, entering into 
our homes, .... renewing us with the 
power of His love." 

Yes, " there is nothing He will not share? 
nothing He will not comfort.'' He knows 
our pains, the measure and the number of 
them all, even to the bearing of weakness, 
which seems so slight a thing in comparison 
with acute suffering, and yet — how large a 
place it fills in sickness— what a desert 
weariness is ! — It is a condition, too, as full 
of temptations as the branch of a thorn- 
bush is full of prickly thorns, and it brings 
its own tests and trials, their leaders, the 
impulse to selfishness, and self-indulgence. 
The only way to meet this phalanx of spirit- 
ual enemies that attack us through our 
weakness, is to fall back on the assurance 
that they come by God's will ; they are 
sent as tests of our true and whole-hearted 
submission, and patient endurance is the 
work they demand from us. And if it leads 
to a place hard to cross as the weary stretch 
of a sandy desert — our Forerunner, Christ, 



xyo DESERT PLACES. 

knows all about it, and He will hear when 
we cry, " Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for 
I am weak." If you thus cry in profound 
earnest, even though the weary weakness 
does not leave your poor tired frame, you will 
nevertheless feel — " Though I am poor and 
needy, the Lord thinketh upon me." 

And — the knowing, " He thinketh," it is 
a very restful pillow on which to fall back, 
and it changes the desert place "into the 
garden of the Lord." 

And now, I will only briefly touch in pass- 
ing, on the distressing forms of sickness 
which entail the loss of mental powers. If 
this trial comes to your beloved ones, all 
you can do is to seek shelter in the sure 
hope, though it may not be here on earth, 
yet God will in His own time fulfil His 
promise, and " the Holy Spirit will bring all 
things to remembrance." It is only for now 
that the light is dimmed — just for now, that 
the cloud is passing before the sun ; There it 
will all come right, there will be no clouds — 
shadows will flee away. 

In among the many lesser lessons illness 
teaches, I think perhaps one of the hardest 



DESERT PLACES. 1 j I 

to learn is the cheerful acceptance of one's 
separation from the home circle. Only they 
who have felt this, can estimate what it 
means to hear the faint sounds of dear 
family life — while memory follows its rou- 
tine, the peaceful assembling for morning 
prayers, the gathering around the home- 
table, the familiar exchange of thought, and 
planning for the day's duties and pleasures — 
and one's self shut out from it all, by no 
barrier of distance save a closed door or 
dividing wall or two. This is no very great 
desert, I know —but it makes a stern demand 
on submissive patience. It is hard, too, to 
become reconciled to the fact that by God's 
will one is set to learn a different lesson 
from the dear loved ones of home — because 
life to an invalid is unlike life to the strong 
and well — nevertheless, this trial is linked 
with love — and love reveals new comforts 
arid blessings — for there are " desert roses "! 
As for "longings" — words cannot span the 
desert places they stretch over in an invalid's 
days. The longing for a sight of the blue 
sky, when one spends day after day in a dark- 
ened room — for a sight of God's fields and 
high hills — shady woods — a glimpse of a 



!y 2 DESERT PLACES. 

meadow and water-brooks — or even for a 
clump of wild-flowers growing by the road- 
side. There come hours, too, when longings 
crave for still wider out-looks — mountains 
and broad flowing rivers — great lakes — and 
the sea — the wide, free, beautiful sea ! — Oh, 
how we long for them — only the " sick and 
weary " know. But, they are the only ones 
who know, too, " how many of our best 
things we learn in sickness. " I copy that sen- 
tence from one who penned a leaflet called 
the " Illuminated Valley " — and close follow- 
ing it, this servant of God wrote : " To me 
it is a new school of theology, or rather the 
higher and more illustrative department of 
the old. I did not know how strong the 
arms are which Christ puts around His sick 
and suffering disciples until I felt myself 
sinking into them for support ; how tender 
the bosom of the Infinite Love, till there 
was nothing else for me to lean upon." 

Surely such an experience is worth the 
enduring of many longings ; and there are 
many more than these few which I have 
enumerated, not the least among them a 
desire for independence that comes with the 
wish for a bit of free motion, even if it be 



DESERT PLACES. ^3 

nought more than the crossing a room, the 
being able to stand before a friendiy book- 
case choosing one's own volume. 

Well — what profit comes of all these 
trials ? Growth in grace God grant — grace 
to leave all longing — all restlessness — with 
Him : knowing He will satisfy them if it 
be best for us ; knowing, too, and this is a 
flower of the obedience of faith, that had 
any other way been equally good for us, 
God would have trained by it. Hence, 
our part is not to question, but to obey — 
even if the command be only to " lie still." 

Before leaving this subject you ask me, 

dear H , to give you one word revealing 

love in those subtle and trying sicknesses 
that rank under the name of " nervous 
diseases." 

I remember reading in a volume of com- 
fort for invalids— a book written, I think, 
by the sister of Frederick Maurice — a 
passage that, I trust, will come to you like 
the touch of a soothing hand when next 
you are troubled by nervous suffering. 
" Do not struggle, for it increases nerv- 
ous troubles fearfully — just lie still. He 
is love, and very pitiful, and of tender 



x y 4 DESERT PLACES. 

mercy. Surely, then, He is grieved with 
and for you — is i touched with a feeling of 
your infirmities ' — for ' He was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin/ 
He bore nervous sufferings. How intensely 
He must have entered into them ; every 
nerve of His was pierced, and wounded, 
and stretched. Say then, ' O Saviour of the 
world, who by Thy cross and precious blood 
hast redeemed us, save us, and help us, we 
humbly beseech Thee, O Lord/ * Fear not: 
He will strengthen you, and uphold you by 
the right hand of His righteousness/ " 

I would fain linger over still other desert 
places to which illness leads, but space for- 
bids. I would fain, too, give you a word of 
cheer for the wearisome nights appointed, the 
sleepless hours when you say, "Would God 
it were morning," and yet the morning tar- 
ries. Yes — I would fain give you a word 
of cheer — and lo ! I have done it, for re- 
member that word "appointed." God knows 
and God rules. What a light that knowl- 
edge sends gleaming across the darkness 
and the weariness — in its beams, spite the 
tossing and restlessness, you know the " Ever- 



DESERT PLACES. jj* 

lasting Arms are underneath," for He has 
promised to "make all your bed in sickness." 

But how when the day comes, and you 
meet the ever-recurring " What can I do ? 
Must I lie useless hour after hour ? " — 

A great help in answering that question 
is to remember you are only commanded to 
do what God gives you strength for, and in 
the matter of " effort" there is always as 
much danger of sinning by overdoing as by 
underdoing ! Then, too, you have a work, 
for there is always the learning of patience. 

But we must leave illness and its teachings 
where " law and love " are so closely inter- 
blended. Enough if we have learned its great 
lesson is obedience, for then we will find help 
in our striving to attain it, from the knowl- 
edge that, " though He was a Son, yet 
learned He obedience by the things which 
He suffered." And if we, too, are called to 
suffer, " it is the will of God," and if cheer- 
fully borne, because His will, we will find 
when we "have passed through all that 
great and terrible wilderness," emblemed 
by suffering and sickness, then " we will 
come unto the mountain .... which the 
Lord our God doth give us." 



x y6 DESERT PLACES. 

What a blessed sequel to our wilderness 
journey ! Think of the seeing, the longings 
satisfied, when we look up and off from the 
Mountain Height to which the discipline 
of our pilgrim days has led ! 

It will be worth all it costs — all — 

" To rest in trust : O German hymn, 
Fill all my heart— my faith is dim ! 

" To leave with Thee : in Thy dear hand 
All things I cannot understand. 
To rest in trust : O German hymn, 
Fill all my soul — my faith is dim ! 

" To ask Thee not the when or how, 
With yielded heart to only bow ; 
To find the joy that comes at length 
From leaning sweetly on Thy strength. 

" To be Thy child : so, lying still, 
To rest in trusting on Thy will ; 
No other arm can fold away 
So tenderly from night till day ! 

" To take the peace He daily giveth 
Unto each troubled heart that liveth ; 
However weak to find my share 
Of the dear Shepherd's gentle care. 

" O rest of trust ! O trust in rest ! 

Sweet German hymn, thy faith is blest." 



DESERT PLACES. jjj 

One thing remains for me to add to this 
long meditation ; and that is not an easy- 
thing to explain. It is the lesson held 
in prosperity. The Old Testament record 
is a beacon-light pointing to this truth. 
" He found him in a desert land, and 
in the waste howling wilderness. He led 
him about, He instructed him. . . . He 
made him ride on the high places of the 
earth, that he might eat the increase of the 
fields ; and He made him to suck honey 
out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty 
rock." "But" (oh, heed this warning if 
you are called to meet the test of pros- 
perity), after it all, " Jeshurun forsook 
God who made him, and lightly esteemed 
the Rock of His Salvation. . . . And when 
the Lord saw it He said, I will hide my 
face." 

Sad as it is, this lack of gratitude — even 
amounting to the forsaking the Lord — is 
wont to be now, as it was then, the afterpart 
of great success in the things of this world. 
It makes one tremble at the very thought of 
great possessions, for our Lord Christ said : 
' How hardly shall they which have riches 
enter the kingdom of Heaven." 

12 



x y8 DESERT PLACES. 

You will remember, in numbering "des- 
erts," the parting from our dear ones filled a 
foremost place, as it does in reality— but 
when called to that wilderness " consider in 
thine heart, that as a man chasteneth his son, 
so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." .... 
And the promise is — even by that way of 
the desert of loneliness, you will be brought 
■ — if you keep " the commandments of the 
Lord," to "a good land — a land of brooks 
of water, of fountains, and depths that 
spring out of valleys and hills." Yes, if we 
yield our will to God's will — and calmly, 
bravely, cheerfully, tread the path He ap- 
points — all these u desert places" we have 
pondered will guide to the "land of wheat 
and barley, and vines and fig-trees, and 
pomegranates : a land of oil olive and 
honey — a land wherein . thou shalt eat 
bread without scarceness, thou shalt not 
lack anything in it : a land whose stones 
are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest 
dig brass." 

Dear — with such a prospect— such a hope 
— I repeat — is not the discipline life brings 
us worth all it costs ? 

Think, these verses are types — every one 



DESERT PLACES. 



179 



rich with a spiritual as well as a material 
significance ; for in the Bible, metaphor is 
the warp and woof of language. Hence the 
"wheat" stands as an emblem of vitality — 
grains of wheat, as we know, having been 
locked in mummy-cases for thousands of 
years, yet retaining the germ of life, which 
springs up when they are planted in the 
kindly earth. " Olive oil" you know how it 
is identified with "thoughts of peace, for- 
giveness, and charity" — the " Vine" with 
"wisdom and intelligence," and the deeper, 
dearer, more sacred meanings which the 
Gospel entwines about it. The "Iron " and 
"Brass" too, what well-know r n types they 
suggest of character. In truth there is not 
one of the terms used in these verses but 
it is full of significance — a sort of word- 
picture.—— 

But to return to the "desert of parting" — 
death here, leading to Life There — before 
we ponder it we will pass on, and find its 
comfort in meditating on " Open Windows." 
— Yes, we will go to the sepulchre, and 
God grant we may find the "stone rolled 
back from the door." 



OPEN WINDOWS. 



" Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, 

if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and 

pour you out a blessing." 

Malachi iii. 10. 

Remember : 

" God illumines those who think often of Him, and 

lift their eyes toward Him." 

Joubert. 

" This one thing I do, forgetting those things which 
are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

Phil. iii. 13-14. 



X. 
OPEN WINDOWS. 

AS children seek flowers when spring 
comes, spreading its mantle of bloom 
over all the land, so let us to-day, dear 

H , go forth and look for the Windows 

that open Heavenward. 

Verily, I think we will find them unveiled 
for faith's eye to scan their farthest reach, 
and our beholdings will be as varied as the 
blossoms that star hill-side and meadow, 
shady nook and sunny field, when April 
glides into May, and May speeds on to 
June. For, truly, words are too narrow to 
span the comforts that come in-flooding 
the soul with light, even at darkest hours, 
in response to the earnest cry : " Thou art 
my lamp, O Lord ; lighten my darkness." 

But this illumining of dark places will 
not come all at once. No, spiritual sight is 
too progressive for that, hence the emblem 

(183) 



!8 4 OPEN WINDOWS. 

of sunrise so often applied to its expanding, 
increasing radiance. You know the way of 
sunrise — first the gray dawn, the break of 
day, and then a kindling glow on the highest 
mountain peaks — a glow that descends in 
ever growing brightness from hill-top to 
hill-top, till at last the remotest lowland 
valley catches a reflection of the glory, aiid 
all the world is bathed in the radiance of 
God's daily repeated command, "Let there 
be light." This is nature's story, and the 
soul's history repeats it, save for the fact 
that full radiance is not our portion here, 
for that we must wait till earth is exchanged 
for Heaven, for here always there will be 
an horizon-line to shut us in. Nevertheless 
we will seek the windows that are open — 
beginning by the suggestions of comfort 
and support — which in-shine in consolation 
beams for the hour we all must meet — the 
hour when "death comes up into our win- 
dows." 

As we ponder this great mystery — mortal 
death as the birth of immortal life — we will 
use the word in its common acceptation. I 
know there are those who look forward to 
it as a glad prospect, those who long for its 



OPEN WINDOWS. 



I8 5 



coming, whose faith is so clear shining, 
death is by them anticipated with no more 
dread than " the passing from one room 

into another.'' But you tell me, dear H , 

you are not one of those thus blessed with a 
" willingness to depart." You tell me you 
fear dying, and I think there is nothing 
wrong in your feeling ; certain I am it is the 
most universal w^ay of regarding departure. 
And it is but natural that the human heart 
should shrink before the profound mystery 
of the silence which no voice has ever yet bro- 
ken — from which none have ever yet come 
back to tell us the way it leads. Yes, it is 
all strange, unknown, and its inevitableness, 
its exceeding vagueness, its exceeding lone- 
liness of familiar companionship, all com- 
bine to fill the heart with trembling awe ; 
and I repeat, surely this is not wrong, for 
nothing in Holy Scripture indicates that 
God condemns it — on the contrary, much 
goes to prove that our Lord Himself re- 
garded it as a crucial test for the timid faith 
of His followers. 

Hence He has richly strewn the pages of 
the Old and New Testaments with promises 
of Divine help, providing a full store of 



x 86 OPEN WINDOWS. 

dying grace for the dying hour. But we 
need not be discouraged because we cannot 
grasp that grace in advance, for it will 
surely be granted us with the need for it — 
then all will be well ; and what we have 
to do now is " to trust that the love which 
has met the needs of busy life many a time 
with unexpected and surprising adapta- 
tions, will, when the time comes, and the 
necessity is close at hand, give the needed 
grace to die." And now let us gather up 
and meditate on the repeated assurances of 
our Saviour's nearness, which can illumine 
the dying hour with the light of Life Eter- 
nal. Think of His strength-giving prom- 
ises — " Fear not, I will be with thee." " Lo ! 
I am with you alway." You shall be "de- 
livered from the burden of the flesh "; " cor- 
ruption shall put on incorruption "; "mor- 
tality shall put on immortality "; "you 
shall obtain joy and gladness"; "sorrow 
and sighing shall flee away"; and "God 
shall wipe away all tears from your eyes : 
and there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be 
any more pain." Tell me, do not these 
thoughts open a window r toward Heaven 



OPEN WINDOWS. jg 7 

— its out-look all peace ? Surely the}^ are 
given to help us on our way Thitherward, 
and yet, how solemn a thing it is to re- 
member, our thoughts of Heaven are wont 
to correspond to our spiritual life. If you 
look deep into your own heart you will 
know this, and you will have a sight of the 
real Heaven for which you long. " Examine 
that, and it will show you precisely your 
spiritual position, just as the traveller knows 
his latitude by looking at the north star, 
and noting its distance above the horizon. 
What are the aspirations that go up from 
the profound within 3^0 u ? What sort of a 
world would you make for yourself, if you 
could have everything your own way, and 
embody around you 3^our own best imag- 
inations ? Answer this question honestly, 
and your idea of Heaven is defined to you, 
and you will see whether it be carnal and 
selfish, or spiritual and pure." 1 have wan- 
dered from your saying that there are other 
reasons beside the physical dread of dying, 
and the mystery of going out into the un- 
known that make you dread death. You tell 
me, there is the consciousness of sin, not only 
of the great omissions and commissions that, 



T SS OPEN WINDOWS. 

like darksome caverns, fill so many places 
in the record of your life — but the vast con- 
course, too, of what may be called " lesser 
faults", ill-temper, wrong thoughts, idle 
dreams, the half-wayness of repentance, the 
little love and praise, little real devotion 
you have rendered your Lord, languid 
prayers, dull meditations — all these voices 
of conscience come flooding your memory, 
and making your heart tremble, for all the 
while you knew the right and yet you chose 
the wrong. 

Yes, dear — and so it is with us all ; hence, 
no wonder the heart fails when we come to 
know our life's book is written full ; the last 
page turned, the last step taken, there is no 
time left to retrace even so much as one 
line, no time for struggle with, and victory 
over temptation, for we must go, just as we 
are. 

But this is only looking at one side ; turn 
to the other and all is changed in a moment 
from darkness to light, from despair to 
hope ; for, there is one thing left we can do — 
we can cling to the Crucified ! Cling so close 
to His cross that in its shadow we will lose 
self and sin, giving all into His care, and He 



OPEN WINDOWS. !g 9 

is so willing to take it — so willing. Then 

be not faithless, but believing — for neither 
death nor life can separate us from His 
boundless Love. — Oh ! the window that Love 
opens for us — one look through its wide- 
flung curtain reveals enough to take fear 
away ; for it shows us that He, the Christ, 
knows all about dying, knows even the agony 
of feeling the weight of sin ; for though 
He was all sinless, for our sake He carried 
the burden of sin, and thus from us the 
load is taken. He knows, too, all the weari- 
ness and physical weakness and languor of 
dying. He passed through its vagueness 
and mystery that He might say to us, " Fear 
not " — for remember, " When from the Cross 
sounded His Voice, proclaiming, ' It is fin- 
ished,' it meant the deepest darkness of 
death was finished for each of His followers. 
Henceforth not one would ever have to pass 
through it alone." Oh, believe this, and "let 
not your heart be troubled, neither let it 
be afraid." 

As for the time and manner of our depart- 
ure, let us seek to have no will of our own 
— it is so much the more peaceful way — and 
about dying, as about suffering, it is true, 



jg Q OPEN WINDOWS. 

"The law of pain is Love alone, 
The wounding is to heal." 



We can safely trust and leave all with 
Him, who "has appointed a set time" — and 
who will, when that time comes, remember 
us, and be very near us — for "I have graven 
thee on the palms of my hands, saith the 
Lord." 

Faber's hymn, "Wishes about Death," is 
so full, so fragrant with the restful calm, 
the quietness and confidence of leaving all 
to Christ, and yet being true to self in 
natural desire, thinking you may not know 
it, I will copy it for you, verse by verse : 

" I wish to have no wishes left, 
But to leave all to Thee : 
And yet I wish that Thou shouldst wish 
Things that I wish should be. 

11 And these two wills I feel within 

When on my death I muse : 

But, Lord, I have a death to die, 

And not a death to choose. 

"Why should I choose ? for in Thy love 
Most surely I descry 
A gentler death than I myself 
Should dare to ask to die. 



OPEN WINDOWS. 

11 But Thou wiit not disdain to hear 
What these few wishes are 
Which I abandon to Thy love, 
And to Thy wiser care. 

" Triumphant death I would not ask, 
Rather would deprecate : 
For dying souls deceive themselves 
Soonest when most elate. 

" All graces I would crave to have 
Calmly absorbed in one — 
A perfect sorrow for my sins, 
And duties left undone. 

" I would the light of reason, Lord, 
Up to the last might shine, 
That my own hands might hold my soul 
Until it passed to Thine. 

44 And I would pass in silence, Lord, 
No brave words on my lips, 
Lest pride should cloud my soul, and I 
Should die in the eclipse. 

" But when and where, and by what pain, 
All this is one to me ; 
I only long for such a death 
As most shall honor Thee. 

" Long life dismays me, by the sense 
Of my own weakness scared ; 
And by Thy grace a sudden death 
Need not be unprepared. 



191 



I9 2 OPEN WINDOWS. 

" One wish is hard to be unwished — 
That I at last might die 
Of grief, for having wronged with sin 
Thy spotless Majesty." 

What ! — after all this — do you again tell 
me you fear "because you are a sinner "? — 
Dear, did I not tell you He has bidden us 
leave ourselves with Him ? — and sin is a 
part of self. 

But you say, "the wages of sin is death. " 
Yes — but His Love in its fulness of forgive- 
ness and redemption has paid those wages 
for us — it is Love like an ocean ; fathomless 
to any plummet ever yet discovered by the 
wisest man this world has known. Can you 
not trust that Love ? Can you not believe 
in victory over sin through our Lord Jesus 
Christ ? Try to remember, " He hath over- 
come the sharpness of death, and opened 
the kingdom of Heaven for all believers "; 
thus the question is — not the magnitude of 
your sinfulness — but — do you believe ? — 
" He hath opened the kingdom of Heaven." 
What a window this promise, through which 
comes the in-shining brightness of the Sun 
of Righteousness. 

Think of the "kingdom of Heaven," and 



OPEN WINDOWS. I9 3 

what it means — and remember, in Christ's 
use of the words the light falls from above 
down on to our daily life, for they are linked 
with a thought of service here below. 

Yes — the kingdom of Heaven belongs to 
now as truly as to the blessed Hereafter. 

You will catch my meaning, if you re- 
peat the Lord's prayer — " Thy will be done, 
. . . . Thy kingdom come on earth as in 
Heaven" — for this is a petition that asks 
not for flight into the Heaven above, 
but for entrance into Heaven here and 
now — the spiritual Heaven whose realm is 
in the soul, and of which Christ tells us, 
saying—" Verily I say unto you, except ye 
be converted and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
Heaven ; whosoever therefore shall humble 
himself as a little child, the same is greatest 
in the kingdom of Heaven." Hence, what we 
have to seek is child-likeness of spirit, and 
that we may know what that is, windows of 
interpretation are set wide open on every 
side ; dull indeed must we be to miss their 
meaning, and yet we need to be careful lest 
we over-look the difference Scripture so 
plainly notes between childishness and 
13 



I9 4 OPEN WINDOWS. 

child-likeness. You know the character- 
istics of a childish soul — self-confidence, 
selfishness, lack of stability, fretfulness, 
waywardness ; and you know, too, how un- 
like they are to the child-likeness which is 
marked by trustfulness, submission, and the 
sweet simplicity of a heart pure in thought 
and intent. And to have a soul full as a 
garden of flowers with such sweet traits, is 
to have the kingdom of Heaven within, and 
we may have it — no matter how far, accord- 
ing to time's counting of years, we have 
passed beyond the limits of childhood, for 
to souls there is no such thing as old age ; 
return to the true spirit of child-likeness is 
always possible — and by thus returning we 
come into harmony with the law of growth, 

for childhood is a type of growth, 

and then — think of the sequel to all this ! — 
When growth has come to the limit God sets 
for each soul to attain through the disci- 
pline of life, then we pass on to that Higher 
Heaven where the soul's language will ever 
be the child's "Abba, Father." 

For child-likeness does not end here, it is 
so truly a part of the ever abiding " Faith, 
Hope, and Love," which reach on and on be- 



OPEN WINDOWS. I95 

yond our power to follow, for "eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered 
into the heart of man to conceive, the things 
which God hath prepared for them that love 
Him." 

All this leads us round again, to the prom- 
ise, " He hath opened the kingdom of Heav- 
en"; but now, we seek not the in-ward, but 
the on-ward looks which take us close to 
the Border-land of the Heavenly Country, 
where there is no more dying. Knowing 
this, surely we need not fear either to let our 
dearest go, or to go ourselves in response 
to the call bidding us leave this world for 
the next — for — He who thus calls is the One 
" who has tasted death for every man " — 
He, whose name is Jesus, and " He shall 
save His people from the power of the 
grave." Remember, He has promised to be 
" the strength of your heart," and " His 
strength is made perfect in weakness." 
Death here is a mere gate leading to Life 
There — for, " Except a corn of wheat fall 
into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; 
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 
How the emblem truth of that verse is all 
aglow with life — kindling the dying here 



196 



OPEN WINDOWS. 



with beams of radiance from the living 
There. And, of these beams of light that 
fall aslant the Hereafter the Bible is so full. 
If you will but read it with a mind wide 
awake to find the passages which make im- 
mortality real, I think your heart will be 
filled with gladness, and with wonder, too, 
at the openings Heavenward — for, truly, 
" the windows of Heaven do open," and in 
the hope of all they reveal, how the Future 
broadens ! And silence, too, grows full of 
music, for we begin to know what the words 
mean which tell, "you shall come to Zion 
with songs and everlasting joy." Only have 
faith — then the promise is so sure, "ye 
shall obtain " — even as they, our dear ones, 
have obtained entrance into the Heavenly 
Home — for, while there is much veiling of 
the " Other Shore," Christ's own words 
assure us they who have heard His call, 
and gone, are at Rest now, safe Home — with 
Him — for His prayer was — " Father, I will 
that those whom Thou hast given Me, be 
with Me, where I am." 

Truly there is no love like the love of 
Jesus — no solace so tender as the comfort 
He gives, when He lets us gaze through 



OPEN WINDOWS. I9 7 

the window that opens toward the " green 
pastures and the still waters " of the land 
into which our beloved have entered. Only 
they who have held the hand of the pre- 
cious departing one, till verily they have 
let it go, because Christ's Hand has led 
within, can know the full, sacred, holy mean- 
ing that haloes the death of His Saints. 

Such in-looks belong to the glorious lib- 
erty and light of the children of God, for 
by them we behold with the eye of faith 
" the Heavens open and the Son of Man, 
Jesus our Mediator, sitting on the right 
hand of God " — and where He is, they are — 
our dearest — His Saints! When in the 
night of sorrow God grants us such an 
onward look, it is as when a storm suddenly 
clears away, and stars shine through the 
rifts in the clouds ; and then we know, too, 
what it means to hear "songs- in the night." 
— That is the Old Testament promise of 
consolation. And the New echoes it in the 
words, "sorrowing yet rejoicing." 

Ponder for a moment those promised 
songs, and remember they are not blossoms 
out of sunshine, like flowers, but they are 
night songs, born out of sorrow, of which 



I9 8 OPEN WINDOWS. 

darkness stands as the type ; and yet, though 
we learn them through trouble, they are full 
of the music of comfort, for, " God giveth 
them." — " The God, who is our refuge 
and our strength, a very present help in 
trouble/' — "The God of all comfort, w T ho 
comforteth us in all our tribulations." And 
because of this comfort we "glory in trib- 
ulation," we can even sing, for "the Lord 
is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble : 
and — He knoweth them that trust Him." 
He has promised, " as one whom his 
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." 
In " His love and His pity He will re- 
deem." And, you will find, as life goes on, 
that " the Gethsemane places have done 
more for you than the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion" — and that "God's comforts are always 
greater than our troubles." 

It is, too, by acquiescing in God's will we 
learn to thankfully— yes, thankfully — accept 
trouble, since He permits it, and thankful- 
ness is another word for song — and "every 
sorrow brings a peace with it." 

How can your heart enter into harmony 
with this? I know but one reply to give 
you — and that is, do not seek for the songs 



OPEN WINDOWS. !Q 9 

or the peace, but seek Him who giveth 
them, and they will be the outcome of His 
felt Presence in the soul, as sure as sunrise 
is the outcome of day-dawn. This is how 
we Christians live "sorrowing yet rejoicing 
lives/' and the turning to Him in our mid- 
night grief is like passing from darkness to 
light — hence the songs come unbidden, not 
because we seek them, I repeat, but because 
we seek the God who gives them. When 
He thus fills the soul, then, as at the coming 
of the morning, the birds of the air break 
forth with song, so our hearts sing ; and 
the simpler, the fuller our trust in Christ, 
the fuller and sweeter the songs. This leads 
me to repeat what I said in a former medi- 
tation — hence we do not welcome suffering 
for what // is, but for what it does ! — and 
nothing is so wont to lead near to God as 
sorrow. And now your next query is, " How 
can you find windows of Heaven opening?" 
My reply must again seem a repetition, for 
all I can tell you is — not by seeking them 
through the experience of others — for God 
gives to each one of us a special rev- 
elation, and we can only come to that rev- 
elation by accepting the conditions of our 



200 OPEN WINDOWS. 

surroundings, and doing our duty in them 
faithfully and trustfully ; and — you will 
forgive the warning — this is a place where 
there is always danger of giving "an un- 
due prominence to the blessed and glorious 
work that has been done for us without us, 
to the exclusion of the equally blessed and 
all-important work which must be accom- 
plished within us before we can be meet for 
the Heavenly inheritance that has been pur- 
chased for us, and to which we can have no 
possible claim but the unmerited mercy of 
Jesus Christ." This being so, the fullest 
answer I can give to your query of how to 
obtain Heavenward glimpses, is the simple 
reply, live near to the Source of Light ; for 
the closer we keep to that Light, the more 
we see ; dark places grow so plain in its 
illumining ; mists so vanish before its shin- 
ing. Yes, wonderful as it is, if we live 
near Christ, like Stephen of old, we may see 
the " Heavens opened." But, for such a 
blessed seeing, we must have Stephen's 
spirit, we must look " steadfastly up into 
Heaven." 

Another window of Comfort that Christ 
has opened wide for us, is the blessed sure- 



OPEN WINDOWS. 20 T 

ness we have through His death and resur- 
rection — which is the pledge of ours — that 
we will meet our dear ones in Heaven. 
Only for now is the parting. Among the 
Bible records that serve to make this most 
sure, how clearly defined against the blue 
sky of the Gospel narrative is the appearing 
of Moses and Elias on the Transfiguration 
Mount— where we are told "they talked of 
the Lord's decease, which He should accom- 
plish at Jerusalem. " What a token this, 
that while our eyes are holden from the joy 
of seeing our beloved, they may yet see us — 
and have knowledge to some extent of what 
is going on here on earth — -and of what is 
to be our future. Think, too, of the glimpse 
that record gives of the resurrection of the 
body — for they both " heard " and " spoke." 

This leads us to the window widest open 
of all, for through it shines that most blessed 
assurance of Life Hereafter, which is re- 
vealed by Christ's words : " I am He that 
liveth." Liveth ! — that is a promise of 
perpetual life : there is no echo of death in 
it. And it is a life which reaches out and 
enfolds every one of us — stamping with 
permanency all love that is " love in Christ." 



202 OPEN WINDOWS. 

This makes friendshio such a blessed last- 

i. 

ing thing, with no break in its real linking 
of heart to heart, even though for a time we 
be separated — the one from the other. A 
lasting thing, I repeat, lasting beyond our 
now power of conception — for who can span 
eternity by a thought ? — Who can limit the 
growth of an endless affection ? And the 
deeper and fuller the heart we love, the 
surer we become of this truth of love's im- 
mortalitv, for it is the most earnest souls 
that bear the richest testimony that this life 
is not all. And, as though to make this 
even more certain, we have but to look 
from the heart of friendship on to the reve- 
lations made plain by the life of Christ, for 
there we see Love triumphing over mortal 
death, as truly as Life triumphs over the 
grave. If for a time, in the first agony of 
the wrench of parting from our dearest, we 
cry out in doubt of this — " Lord, tell me, 
will we meet again?" — softly as the dew 
falls on flowers in the gloom of midnight 
darkness, we hear in reply, the tender 
whisper of the "Still, Small Voice "—"Thy 
brother shall live again ! " And — the crown 
to that promise, you know it — for " Christ 



OPEN WINDOWS. 203 

has Risen ! " and His empty tomb has be- 
come the pledge to us that the grave does 
not hold the dear souls of those gone before 
us, who, through His redemption and resur- 
rection " are not dead, but alive forever- 
more." 

How like a warm hand-clasp of comfort 
for the deepest depth of grief comes this 
knowledge, even though it leads us to the 
sepulchre in the garden. A place where we 
need to tread very softly, for it is holy 
ground — so holy, much of silence and mys- 
tery veils it. Nevertheless, since the dawn- 
ing of the Resurrection day, though it be a 
path leading by the way of graves, we know 
it is " God's acre," and its onward is the 
" Many-Mansioned Home," of which Christ 
said, " I go to prepare a place for you." 
For, though graves have been no less since 
that day, they are no longer tight-sealed 
and stone-guarded. No — when the stone 
was rolled from our Saviour's tomb, hence- 
forth stones were rolled from all graves, 
whatever be the sorrow they mark, and on- 
looks were granted beyond the " dying and 
the weeping." 

Such wonderful on-looks — for so tender 



204 OPEN WINDOWS. 

is the Saviour's pity for us, He even " maketh 
intercession, " that these looks may pene- 
trate on to the blessedness of which He 
says, "that they may behold my glory." 
And, "because the Father loves, the Son's 
prayer of Love is granted. " For Love is the 
other side of the grave ! 

Remember when sorrow comes — that 
other side — Love, and Home ! — I often won- 
der what we would do amid the fragmentary, 
broken places of this uncertain existence 
which is at best 

" A wave, a shadow, a breath, a strife, 
With change and change forever rife." 

How we could bear it, were it not that the 
Hope given by " Him who was dead and 
now liveth foreverm ore " bridges over our 
uncertainty, and is planted firm within the 
golden gate through which we will " for 
Christ's sake" pass at last. 

Yes, dear H , for you and for me the 

gates will open, though now they seem so 
close shut ; we may — wonderful thought — • 
even this very hour stand within their enclo- 
sure ; we may be " nearer Home," — "nearer 
now than we think." 



OPEN WINDOWS. 205 

You ask me, before we leave this sub- 
ject, to look with you through " the window 
of prayer " — and you prelude your request 
by the question, "What is prayer ?" Old 
Bunyan's definition is, "Prayer is the pitch- 
er that fetches water from the brook. " If 
this be so, surely a window is open in 
Heaven from which light descends to make 
clear the reflections mirrored in the "brook 
in the way," whose waters are replenished by 
the prayers of God's pleading children. 

A full gleam of radiance shines, too, on the 
spirit of submission, which is the key-note 
of true prayer. For if we follow our "great 
Exemplar in Prayer" we must say, "Thy 
will, not mine, be done." Perseverance is 
another bright shining wavelet ; and here, 
also, we have our Lord's example — for He 
offered one prayer three times, and surely we 
learn from His frequent resorting to the 
refuge of prayer that it is the best prepa- 
ration for trial. But the dearest place to 
which the thought of our praying Lord 
leads, is the example He gives that we may 
plead for our precious ones, even as He 
prayed for His own. " What a blessing, too, 
is the spiritual telegraphy of prayer ! We 



20 6 OPEN WINDOWS. 

never pray alone, but encircled by those 
whose wants are dear to us, and our prayers 
are buoyed up by the wants and aspirations 
of those who mingle in them. It is such a 
privilege to thus go to God with the import- 
ance which linking others' wants to ours 
gives to our petitions." What out-reaching 
that extract suggests ! — Let us look at 
prayer, too, from a backward view, and recall 
how "the practice of prayer is co-extensive 
with the idea of religion "; for "wherever 
man has believed a higher power to exist, 
he has not merely discussed the possibility 
of entering into converse with such a power: 
he has assumed as a matter of course that he 
can do so." " Sacrifice begins at the very gate 
of Eden. The life of early Patriarchs is de- 
scribed as a ' walking with God '- — a contin- 
uous reference of thought and aspiration to 
the Father above." How this early-felt 
need of communion through prayer points 
on to the time when "the new revelation 
was made in Jesus Christ," and when "there 
was little to add to what was already be- 
lieved as to the power and obligation of 
prayer beyond revealing the secret of its 
acceptance." Think, too, of our Lord's 



OPEN WINDOWS. 207 

precepts and example ; they are sufficiently 
emphatic. And His apostles appear to 
represent prayer not so much as a prac- 
tice of the Christian life as its very truth 
and instinctive movement The Christian 
must be " continuing instant in prayer"; 
he must "pray without ceasing." One 
word more from this author's thoughts, 
and I think you will call the window 
of prayer wide open. It is — remember, 
"prayer is emphatically religion in action. 
It is the soul of man engaged in that par- 
ticular form of activity which presupposes 
the existence of a great bond between itself 
and God. Prayer is, therefore, nothing else 
or less than the noblest kind of human ex- 
ertion. It is the one department of action 
in which man realizes the highest privilege 
and capacity of his being. And, in doing 
this, he is himself enriched and ennobled al- 
most indefinitely : now, as of old, when he 
comes down from the mountain his face 
bears tokens of an irradiation which is not 
of this world." 

We have dwelt much in this little diary 
on the lesson of "sorrow" and of "service" 



2 o8 OPEN WINDOWS. 

— and yet you ask me, before we come to 
its last page, to point you to still another 
window through which you may view 
them both by gazing Heavenward. In re- 
ply, for "sorrow," I copy words from Rob- 
ertson, for they flood with light to my mind, 
and I think will to yours, the truth that 
sorrow's mission is the development of a 
higher spiritual life. " Sorrow is not an ac- 
cident, occurring now and then ; it is the 
very woof which is woven into the warp of 
life. God has created the nerves to agonize 
and the heart to bleed ; and before a man 
dies, almost every nerve has thrilled with 
pain and every affection has been wounded. 
The account of life which represents it as 
probative is inadequate : so is that which 
regards it chiefly as a system of rewards 
and punishments. The truest account of 
this mysterious existence seems to be that 
it is intended for the development of the 
soul's life, for which sorrow is indispen- 
sable. Every son of man, who would at- 
tain the true end of his being, must be bap- 
tized with fire. It is the law of our human- 
ity, as that of Christ, that we must be per- 
fected through suffering. And he who has 



OPEN WINDOWS. 20 o 

not discerned the divine sacredness of sor- 
row, and the profound meaning which is 
concealed in pain, has yet to learn what life 
is. The cross, manifested as the necessity 
of the highest life, alone interprets it." 

As for the window that looks toward the 
prophecy held in service, it is not far 
to seek — for, as indolence is always like a 
moth in its subtle but sure destruction of 
energy, steadfast earnest service is a corre- 
spondingly sure indication of advance ; and 
all advance in the spiritual life is an open 
window showing as its sign that the same 
mighty conqueror who was victorious over 
the grave, will be triumphant in the over- 
coming of spiritual death in our souls if we 
earnestly seek to serve Him e 

And service is something with which all 
life is hedged in, since it can be rendered by 
a passive obedience as well as active — and 
though " it is by active performance of ser- 
vice for others, that self is most wont to be 
cast out of sight, and unselfish love to our 
neighbor expanded," yet quiet and seem- 
ingly uneventful lives offer plenty of oppor- 
tunities for this, too. For, there is always 
the conflict with sins around us, and within, 
14 



2 ro OPEN WINDOWS. 

and I know no better way of pointing 
toward the window that struggle with temp- 
tation opens, than that which Farrar tells 
— when he writes: " He who tempers the 
wind to the shorn Lamb, tempers also the 
temptations to the weak soul. 

" He knoweth our frame, He remembereth 
that we are but dust. Oh, in that hero- 
multitude who follow the Lamb whither- 
soever He goeth, think not that there are 
only the dauntless, and the powerful, the 
great in heart and the strong in faith : no, 
there are many of the weak and timid, many 
of the obscure and the ignorant, many of the 
shrinking and the suffering there. We saw- 
not, till they were unfolded for the flight of 
death, the angel wings." 

The window through which weariness 
looks Heavenward ! — its prospect is all Rest 
— that blessed rest they know, who serve 
Him day and night with never a need to say 
— " I am tired."— — 

And, now, we will take just one glance 
through the window Paul throws so wide 
for all believers, when he writes : " This 
one thing I do, forgetting those things 
which are behind, and reaching forth unto 



OPEN WINDOWS. 2 - | 

those things that are before, I press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling 
in Christ Jesus. " 

Words, these, that portray the heritage 
that only belongs to the Christian ! even 
the right to forget the past— and in that 
forgetting we find a window opening toward 
the future that is verily as full of promise 
as the bud is the promise of fruit. 

But remembe \ there is but one way given 
by which we are enabled to forget — and that 
is, by reaching forward ; for the object of 
each experience is the fitting the soul for 
another, while the thing we accomplish is 
always of so much less importance in God's 
sight, than what we become through its 
developing power. 

This constant progress, constant ,4 step- 
ping-Heavenward," is so the mark of true 
soul life, for the command, " Speak unto the 
children of Israel that they go forward," is 
as much a command for us now, as it was 
for God's children of old ; and just as they 
had nothing to do with the land of bondage 
after they had passed its confines, so we 
have nothing to do with our past when we 
have given our hearts to Christ, for we gave 



2i2 OPEN WINDOWS. 

that to Him, too — and, spite the sins that 
stain its record — He has promised, "sins 
shall be blotted out, remembered no more," 
hence they are not for us to recall. And, 
certainly, with whatever of good there may 
have been in our by-gone, we have nothing 
to do— He will take care of it— our path is 
all forward ! 

I think this is why such a deep signifi- 
cance is given in the Bible to "looking 
back "—and why the emblem of death is set 
as a warning against it. You remember 
Lot's wife dead— dead— only in punishment 
for a backward look !— No wonder this 
solemn lesson has stood a type of spiritual 
death, through the ages that have come and 
gone since the angel voice proclaimed— 
" Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, 
. . . . escape to the mountains." 

Do you ask, what I think the prize Paul 
sought- — and which, in following his exam- 
ple, we are to seek ? 

Likeness to Christ, is my reply ; thus 
it is always something beyond us, for the 
more like Him we become, the fuller and 
deeper is our knowledge of what He is, 
and the more eager grows our reaching 



OPEN WINDOWS. 213 

forth after likeness to Him. Yes — surely 
this was the prize Paul desired — for it was 
not Heaven he sought, Heaven was in his 
heart already. It was not to be saved- — for 
of salvation he was already assured through 
the love of Christ — hence, plainly, we see it 
was likeness to the great Example. 

And with such a prize set before him, 
how could he help " counting all things 
but loss that he might win " ? Ah ! well 
might he term it " a high calling." And 
lest we be discouraged as we strive to run 
this race, not perfection, but faithfulness 
is made the test of success ; while being 
perfect is always the open window to- 
ward which faithfulness points, granting us 
through it, even now, glimpses of the blessed 
hereafter, when we shall "wake up in His 
likeness ": when we shall enter within " the 
veil whither the forerunner — Jesus — is al- 
ready entered for us." 

And so, dear H — — , all we have to do is 
to run with patience " the race set before 
us, looking unto Jesus, the author and fin- 
isher of our faith." And not looking for 
what the world calls success — for that our 
Lord never promised us in this life. No, He 



2I 4 OPEN WINDOWS. 

said — " In the world ye shall have tribula- 
tion/' Nevertheless, He bade us " be of good 
cheer." Hence this is a command that we 
must read in the same way that we look at 
a rough transparency, whose inequalities 
reveal naught but a broken surface as we 
gaze down on it, but which, when held up 
for the light to illume, becomes a beautiful 
picture ; just as tribulations held up toward 
the light become transparent and fall of 
Love's revealing. And those rays of Light 
— remember, they are to be on-reaching, 
even to the including others in their bright- 
ness. How beautiful and precious the hope 
that in-shines through this window. — Think ! 
" others toiling, striving, suffering as we, will 
catch trom us in the days to come, some 
touch of tender, helpful comfort, if now, in 
the hour of trial, we hold fast to God and 
to holiness." 

You remember, dear H , we prefaced 

this our " open window " meditation by 
the emblem held in sunrise ; let us now 
seal it w r ith the emblem of sunset — a meta- 
phor no less meaningful. Not a cloud- 
less sunset, when the world is flooded with 
the shimmer of a pale uniform light, but 



OPEN WINDOWS. 215 

one heralded by cloud heaped high en 
cloud, for it is then that each catch a sun- 
beam that reveals a special ray of glory, 
bringing out now one and then another 
"sun and cloud" tinting of rainbow ra- 
diance, till at last the earth as well as sky 
is aglow with brightness. 

A meaningful type, I repeat, for thus it is 
with the sorrows and trials of life ; through 
the shining on them of God's care for us, 
they each and every one become a sepa- 
rate beam, till at last before the full glory 
of His Love and Light they roll away and 
the " "Windows of Heaven " open with no 
shadow between our upward gaze, and His 
down-shining brightness. 

May " God be merciful unto us, and bless 
us, and thus show us the Light " — even the 
light of His countenance. And He will, if 
in faith we seek it, for Christ said — " I am 
the Light of the world." Walk, then, as a 
child of light, " in quietness and confidence 
wherein is strength." 



"Almighty God, who showest to those 
that are in error the Light of Thy truth, .... 



2I 6 OPEN WINDOWS. 

and who alone canst order the unruly wills 
and affections of sinful men, grant unto 
Thy people that they may love the things 
which Thou commandest, and desire that 
w r hich Thou dost promise : that so among 
the manifold changes of this world, our 
hearts may surely There be fixed, where our 
true joys are to be found ; through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen " 



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